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Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3683 02/18/07 01:58 PM
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Timbo Offline
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Surface checks can run to center of log , but usually don't. lumber cut later won't usually have checks running lengthwise. If your plan is carved in stone and timber sizes and length not likely to change and you will fit within a year cutting the timbers is best. If not cut just before you use them , they chisle and drill and shrink to fit better.


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Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3684 02/19/07 03:23 AM
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Don P Offline
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This is a picture I took today. The tree was felled about Feb 1, was sawn within that week and has been outside since.


It has dried about 1/2" around the perimeter, to something below the fiber saturation point. The cell lumens, or cavities, have lost the free water that filled them, the cell walls still contain bound water.

The core of the timber is obviously saturated, moisture doesn't go down in winter. It is also frozen. I would bet the dry edge is also how deep the timber has thawed on any given day.

Also look at the left hand waney edges, I had not removed the bark. Notice how little drying has occured there. In warmer weather bluestain thrives at moisture contents above ~25%, getting the surface drier than that helps prevent it. Getting the bark off helps dry the faces below that point faster.

You can also see how a shell that is shrinking over a still saturated core is setting up checking stresses.

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3685 02/19/07 05:00 PM
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TIMBER !

I just couldn't help it, the crew is getting started on my lot today, I feel bad about cutting down such majestic trees, but I hope to give them a good home.

The concensus seems to be that curing timbers is the way to go. Going through the trouble of removing the bark seems to be just as much work (without proper tooling) as just going ahead and getting the timbers cut.

My timber schedule is not finalized yet so I think I will get the sawyer to cut the largest timbers possible from the trees. I'll then let them (and all the boards) season well protected from the sun and off the ground.

Thanks for everyone sharing their knowledge.

P.S.
Thomas, your home is coming along nicely, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3686 03/25/07 05:59 AM
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mo Offline
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I don't know, I guess these guy do.




Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? [Re: mo] #11167 04/18/07 07:30 PM
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I was reading "The Ten Books of Architecture" by Vitruvius and I found some interesting stuff that made be post on this topic. Vitruvius was alive and well in the 1st century BC. No chemistry and molecular levels here. Pretty cool book in that it describes buildings before all of our modern technological "advances". He is describing hardwoods I believe.

First he states that "Timber should be felled between early Autumn and the time when Favonius begins to blow (you must keep a dictionary around when reading the works of pagans). For in spring all trees become pregnant, and they are employing their natural vigour in the production of leaves." He then goes on to compare a tree in the spring to a pregnant women. And how trees and women are not as strong (physically) when bearing offspring. laugh Crazy guy. All the same conclusions right?

Now what do you all think of this?

"In felling a tree we should cut into the trunk of it to the very heart, and then leave it standing so that the sap may drain out drop by drop throughout the whole of it. In this way the use-less liquid which is within will run out through the sapwood instead of having it die in a mass of decay, thus spoiling the quality of the timber. Then and not till then, the tree being drained dry and the sap no longer dripping, let it be felled and it will be in the highest state of usefulness".

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