Milling damp/wet wood

[AndrewS]

Afternoon folks!

 

Another daft laddie question.. (plenty more where this came from...)! ;-)

 

Having recently bought a Small Log Mill from uber-helpful Rob D, I'm itching to use it but have been hampered by the unseasonably cr@p weather. Looking at the forecast, there may be a window of opportunity this weekend but the logs are stored outside and are saturated after more than a week of heavy rain.

 

Can they be milled in this condition? What are the potential pitfalls?

 

Cheers,

 

AndrewS

[Treewarrior]

Speak with the expert..........Rob D!

[bella wood]

Milling damp wood isnt a problem,,, but the wood drying out to fast afterwards can be ,, if the summer does start dont let the sun shine on the sawn faces of boards or else itll helpthem start cracking ,,, i normaly use thinner stickers between boards when the timber is milled during the summer to slow down the drying ,, and put your sticked piles under cover or in a shed ,,,

[agg221]

The wood won't be any more saturated than when you started, unless it's a rotten bit of sapwood. The rain of the last few weeks will only have penetrated a couple of mm at most. Entirely echo bella wood's comments - I use 3/8 sticks in summer and stack with bark on the exposed side, then lean something up against the face with an air gap behind if there's any chance of low angle sun. In an ideal world you could even drop plastic sheets over the exposed side in the morning, then roll them up in the evening, but I've only gone to this extreme once when I had no choice but to mill a load of oak floorboards in mid-August (it worked, not even any surface checks).

 

Alec

[Rob D]

Afternoon folks!

 

Another daft laddie question.. (plenty more where this came from...)! ;-)

 

Having recently bought a Small Log Mill from uber-helpful Rob D, I'm itching to use it but have been hampered by the unseasonably cr@p weather. Looking at the forecast, there may be a window of opportunity this weekend but the logs are stored outside and are saturated after more than a week of heavy rain.

 

Can they be milled in this condition? What are the potential pitfalls?

 

Cheers,

 

AndrewS

 

Thanks Andrew for the comment!

 

As above weather won't affect the wood at all except over time.

 

There's so many different variables cutting and drying wood... just get stuck in and have a go!

 

 

 

 

[Rob D]

Speak with the expert..........Rob D!

 

 

Cheers!

[Rob D]

Put some pics up and comments of how you got on afterwards as well.

 

Chain sharpness is the crucial bit.