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Good Day All,

A while back i posted a pic with my pick up full of walnut logs, and recently had it milled and got it stickered.Here she is in the back yard, just wondered how long do you think in the southern ontario climate it will have to wait before being usable for guitar and flooring. The bottom 5 layers are quartered, the rest off quarter and flat.
thx
landrover

I think the general rule is about 1 year per inch of thickness.

Ditto. This will get to about equilibrium with your climate. In my case (in humid Hawaii) that still leaves it around 20% MC, so for guitars, resawn sets would then want to dry further in a climate controlled environment. I have a stash of wood I had slabbed out at 3 1/4". I'm giving it 4 years-plus to air dry because it's so thick.

Peace,
Sanaka

_________________
...imagine there were no hypothetical situations...

Nice stash of Walnut BTW...

_________________
...imagine there were no hypothetical situations...

Thanks all,

End grain is sealed with Lee Valley's sealer, and thanks, i really lucked out. She's sawn at inch and an eigth , so i might push my luck and start sawing in 12 months. Then re sticker and wait some more. Any ideas as to minimum thicknesses for flooring?
Thx

Hi Landrover,

I'm down in the Leamington Ontario area, as far south as your going to get in Ontario. I've built custom furniture and cabinets here for the last 26 years. Over those years I've had logs milled and dried them myself. After one year your going to be in the 12-13% range and it's not going any lower outside. I bring it inside after one year, during the winter with the heat on,and sticker it out for about 2 months. This is usually long enough to get it in the 6-8% range where it's safe to use.

You could probably dry your guitar wood for about the same length of time and then resaw. After resawing, sticker it out in a climate controlled enviroment (45-50% RH) for a couple of months and you should be good to go. Use hardwood for stickers as softwood will hold moisture and stain the walnut. I prefer to use ash. Sticker stain can go quite deep and ruin the wood. I know one guy that had some incredable curly maple and used pressure treated 2x4' strips to sticker his pile...all he was able to salvage were the short length between the stickers

I've seen flooring milled down to 3/8" but that doesn't allow you much room for sanding/refinishing without exposing the tounge and grove joint. Most flooring is in the 5/8 - 3/4" range.

Paul

Thanks for the awesome reply

The only thing i can't be sure on is the sticker wood. it was from the mill,not sure what it was. I thought i had done everything right, i had not seen mention of sticker stain before. I hope and think he would know of such a risk. I did have to use some particle board cut to strips for the last couple of layers,as i ran out of his stikers,should i be concerned with them? Thanks again.

Landrover