English Oak - high moisture - advice please

[RogerM]

About a year ago I bought some wany edge English Oak boards, about 1" to 1.25" thick, by an average of 22" wide, from a land owner who told me that they had been air-dried for the previous 2 years under cover in an open ended barn, which is where I viewed them, and they had clearly been there some time. For the last year they have been stacked in the garage separated with 1" sticks (offcuts from the same boards).

Today I started to prepare a cutting list for a tall bookcase with a 2 drawer base unit, and the finished timber will finish up 3/4" thick - the intention being to stack the roughly thicknessed timber (thicknessed to 7/8ths) indoors for a few weeks before starting work. I even got the camera out to start a WIP thread with loads of piccies. However my newly acquired Wagner moisture meter gives a moisture content (after applying the species adjustment factor) of 23%. This is disappointingly high and clearly not ready for furniture making. So what do I do?

1. Continue to stack the cut list in the garage as sawn boards.

2. thickness it sufficiently to get it to an even thickness (say 7/8") and leave it in the garage.

3. thickness it to 7/8" and store it indoors.

I guess that the cold wet summer has done me no favours. If I store it indoors, how long would 7/8" take to dry from 23% down to a usable level of (say) 15%. Our existing oak furniture gives an adjusted MC of 13.5%. I have 25 cu ft of this stuff (MC aside, it's absolutely gorgeous wood) but the frustration in not being able to start using it now is huge!

All constructive advice gratefully received.

[engineerone]

how about doing a test roger, and moving it inside for a month, in stick, and then seeing what the mc is??

paul

[mrgrimsdale]

I'd dimension it; reduce to cutting list sizes with a good margin for further bowing, planing and thicknessing, but not thickness it yet.
Then store indoors (not too hot or dry though) until you can't wait any longer.
If you dry it further whilst still in full sized boards, the insides will still be wetter than the outsides, for some time, and cutting could be followed by further movement. But if you dimension it now, it will dry evenly from all 4 sides and 2 ends, as the air dried MC would be constant through the pieces.
That's my theory anyway ;D

cheers
Jacob

[robo]

I agree with Jacob - the smaller the pieces the quicker it will dry.
And definitely leave a good margin for warpage, shrinkage etc.

R

[Keith]

I too would rip it to (oversized) width and cut to, again oversized length, and find a centrally heated room to store it.

I wouldn't plan to use it till next spring, if you use it when it is too wet it will only ruin all you hard work.

[RogerM]

Thank you guys for all your suggestions.

This morning I did a did a MC check by putting a block of the oak in question in the microwave for 5 mins at a time, and took it out at the end of each period to weigh it and to do a moisture check.

To avoid the the fire hazard I kept the setting down to "warm" which is the one below "simmer", and the lowest our microwave will go. This appeared to be quite effective as I had the MC down to 8% by the time it caught fire! SWMBO is out for the day (do you think I would have been allowed to use the microwave otherwise?) and having kept all doors and windows open, and wiped down every surface, the smell may be almost bearable by the time she gets home!

As for the timber, I have decided to cut it roughly to size for my bookcase project, and leave it sticked in the garage with both front and rear doors open to allow a draft through whilst the reasonable weather lasts, but to stack it in our back bedroom come autumn. I'll monitor the MC weekly and hopefully by Spring I'll have some usable timber.

In the meantime I need to decide on whether to buy some kiln dried timber for an immediate smaller project, and what else can be done to get rid of the smell in the kitchen. I'm off now to don my kevlar jock-strap before SWMBO gets home.

[engineerone]

as for the micro wave, say you were told a new method of cleaning it

but realistically it is worth cutting a lemon in half, and then micro waving that for about 1'30-2mins or if no lemon, do you have any lemon juice?? if not then maybe an orange, put it into a bowl of water, and squeeze a little to get some of the juice out, and then
heat up again.

using lemon is actually a good way to both make the room smell fresher, and also clean grease off the walls of the micro wave.

hth but is the kennel warm and dry ;D

paul

[tusses]

any thoughts on vacuum drying ? ?