Wood drying/seasoning for building.

[Nistan]

Hello!

I am doing some research for a story I am writing. The main protag will need to learn to build with wood and do it from scratch. I have tried too find info about DIY seasoning/drying of wood for carpentry but can't seem to find this info.

i thought that maybe some of you have made your own wooden furniture/ permanent buildings from wood that you yourself chopped down and dried/ seasoned. Do any of you have some info about this kind of stuff?

Regards//
Nistan

[Adventure Wolf]

If you are allowing the wood to sit and dry naturally it takes a log six months to a year to season.

[hunter63]

You talking logs....or cut lumber?

[Adventure Wolf]

Since he said doing it from scratch, I gave a response for logs. That was a simple response.

The longer response is that hard woods take longer to dry then soft woods. This drying time depends on the season. The thickness of the board, so on and so forth. They make charts for the drying time of each wood.

[randyt]

I've built many a barn from green oak boards. Nails drive far easier in a green oak board versus a dry oak board. Most traditional timber frame construction was done with green wood. Greenwood is much easier to hew to a dimension than dry. I've built a lot of buildings with green wood, in the round and milled.

[Adventure Wolf]

I've built many a barn from green oak boards. Nails drive far easier in a green oak board versus a dry oak board. Most traditional timber frame construction was done with green wood. Greenwood is much easier to hew to a dimension than dry. I've built a lot of buildings with green wood, in the round and milled.

Yes, but the problem with green wood is it can't be used for fine woodwork. If I wanted to do an oak mantle piece with engravings, furniture or decorative woodwork of any sort, you'd have to use dry wood.

[randyt]

Yes, but the problem with green wood is it can't be used for fine woodwork. If I wanted to do an oak mantle piece with engravings, furniture or decorative woodwork of any sort, you'd have to use dry wood.

This is true but the OP was about wooden furniture and permanent buildings. I have experience in the building part. The furniture not so much but I have seen many a green oak chair, bent wood rocker, seat bottoms made from green oak splints, split log benches, there is probably others too.. Some wood don't shrink as much as other woods such as cedar. Then there is wooden bowls and utensils, these are generally made from green wood. A gun stock would be made from dry wood but if the need was urgent I would use green wood if that's all I had.

[hunter63]

My cabin was built with green milled logs....and milled lumber stand thickness but all different widths and edges were not milled just the flats.

Floor, and roofing boards were green and nailed at edges to prevent "cupping".

Sounds like the OP want to write about some one and has no idea what the character has to do.......

I suggest some basic building books, log and/or lumber...be it on line of actual books....but a thread on a forum isn't gonna give anyone the knowledge to write a believable story about some one that actually does it.

That why good author research the stories and books for years.

[Adventure Wolf]

Carpentry is one of the skills where you are constantly learning something. You might be learning to use a new tool, or an antique tool. You might be using an unusual technique to mend a Victorian era desk for your sister (expensive firewood built by drunk Irish labors! bah humbug!) or trying to figure out how to work with a rare type of wood. What if your wood is in the mid stages of deterioration, then what?

Using carpentry tools is also something you have to do in order to understand them. I can sit her and explain to you how to use a drill press. The way I take a chisel and carve a decorative pattern is something I would have to show you. I could also never explain to you how to properly plane the surface of a board, but I could show you.

As a carpenter, I have to constantly learn. I started on construction sites when I was 18, with my father, by 22 I thought I knew everything. I was wrong, I was still a novice. To save time, I decided to soak a laminated door in paint thinner to remove the paint instead of brushing it on the surface and working the surface with steel wool, sand paper and a paint thinner soaked rag. The next morning, I came back to find that the paint thinner had eaten the glue holding the laminate on a 100+ year old door. The more experienced carpenters hated me for about a week after that. It was pain gluing that stuff back together - I had never laminated a door before.

There's a lot of things I don't know how to do yet. At 25 I would call myself experienced. Give me another 15 years, at 40 maybe I can call myself a master, maybe. It's like that with any skill, especially a professional one.

[Nistan]

Thank you for your informative replies.

My cabin was built with green milled logs....and milled lumber stand thickness but all different widths and edges were not milled just the flats.

Floor, and roofing boards were green and nailed at edges to prevent "cupping".

Sounds like the OP want to write about some one and has no idea what the character has to do.......

I suggest some basic building books, log and/or lumber...be it on line of actual books....but a thread on a forum isn't gonna give anyone the knowledge to write a believable story about some one that actually does it.

That why good author research the stories and books for years.

My protagonist, is a newb as well, so that might help some. The premise is hard to explain, but it's something of a post apocalyptic story where he can scrounge up smaller stuff but not things like shelter or food.
I am also doing some research on the side of this forum. I just couldn't pass up a source with so many knowledgeable people at one place.

[hayshaker]

though ive done carpentry off and on for years i never called myself a carpenter a wood butcher mabey.
my uncle tom was a carpenter even though i could build a small house i still feel theres so much more.
i,ve learned rough and trim work. spent some years in a custom cabinet shop doing damm neer everything.
one week your building a custom nurses station next its a deck on someones house. can i explain how its hard but i can show someone

[Adventure Wolf]

though ive done carpentry off and on for years i never called myself a carpenter a wood butcher mabey.
my uncle tom was a carpenter even though i could build a small house i still feel theres so much more.
i,ve learned rough and trim work. spent some years in a custom cabinet shop doing damm neer everything.
one week your building a custom nurses station next its a deck on someones house. can i explain how its hard but i can show someone

Decks keep carpenters employed.

[hunter63]

Thank you for your informative replies.


My protagonist, is a newb as well, so that might help some. The premise is hard to explain, but it's something of a post apocalyptic story where he can scrounge up smaller stuff but not things like shelter or food.
I am also doing some research on the side of this forum. I just couldn't pass up a source with so many knowledgeable people at one place.

Gonna be needing a whole lot more information on details....location, climate, terrain, urban, rural available materials...ie salvage,...wood, brick, stone......

[suthincomfort]

just me i would go to google book's and find some really old book's on carpentry. i have one from the turn of the century that explain's in pretty good detail how such thing's were done. including drying and splitting wood in proper way's to use it well.