Grading Wood -advice

[TMJ]

I have been milling with my alaskan in spare time for a year now. Some of what I have made has replaced gateposts and also allowed me to make extra garden furniture. However, I really need to produce beams as part of barn restoration (done some pieces but do not know if they are up to it:confused1:. I have no experience of this sort of thing before so where can i find a book/ reference to grading wood? All aspects would be useful - in fact any references to grading/milling/drying/ building with wood. Cheers!

[Brushcutter]

Are you talking about grading to say C26 general strength/ super strength? If so each of the grades has different requirements for different species within the catagories of hard an soft woods.

 

We did a whole load of Larch to C26 SS grade. We had an expert come in and check the lot. He gave us the spec sheet (that i've now misplaced) and we graded it ourselves. Then he checked the lot before it went on the lorry.

 

Basically what your looking at from memory:

Ring spacing

Grain dip

Knot size

Knot frequency

Knots in an % of a specific area. (You make a knot map which is folding a bit of paper the size of the timber and looking at the area you shade as knots)

 

If your working in Oak the tollances are higher than in a softwood. Especially with knots.

[agg221]

Have you spoken to TRADA? They produce a series of reasonably priced guides for this kind of thing.

 

Alec

 

edit: having just looked at their website, it looks like quite a lot of the basic content is now available to view free if you register:

 

TRADA ...all about timber

Edited September 12, 2012 by agg221

[Mike Dempsey]

I know that there has been training courses/seminars run by the FC in Scotland. Maybe there are some down your way as well.

 

Mike

[TMJ]

Thanks for those pointers - Trada looks promising and I found this on the FC website...

 

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/MTG-WEB.pdf/$FILE/MTG-WEB.pdf