How quick do you suppose this poplar will season inside vs outside?

Seeing I get told on a near daily basis what a wild and crazy party animal I am (yeah....not really) I thought I'd test a piece of poplar for fun. I'm curious how big a difference there will be for inside vs outside seasoning, for a round split in two.

I have a green unseasoned small round of white poplar, well about 6.25" x 15", that was split as close to half as I could. One chunk is 7.25 lbs, the other 7.75 lbs, although they look about the same.

How long until the inside seasoned piece will be good enough for the stove do you suppose? A month? March 2016? Next fall? I don't know either lol. One will sit in my stove room, the other in the wood shed.

I don't want to keep splitting the wood smaller and smaller, but I should be able to figure moisture content based on something? Weight of water in a cylinder shape? In any event, the rate of moisture should drop slow enough for me to figure it out by weight. Or at least tell me how much quicker the piece inside is drying out.

Our winter is about to show up, so I'll wager the outdoor piece will lose the race in a big way.

Any thoughts or musings appreciated.

According to math-volume of a cylinder, this whole piece is 460 cubic inches of wood. So, with 1728 being a cubic foot of wood, this piece is about 27 % of a cubic foot, with that being divided in 2. Each piece is approx. 230 cubic inches of wood. Now to figure weight of unseasoned poplar per cubic foot.

According to more math, each cubic foot of this wood (would) weigh about 55.5 lbs.

I just have the one piece sitting inside, but need it to warm up to take a moisture reading. I haven't figured out where in the room to put it yet. Maybe beside the couch to the wall so as to not influence it too much from the stove. And to keep it out of sight.

I know the inside piece will win by a mile, but just for fun I think it will be interesting.

The outside piece gets -10 to -40 Celsius (14 to -40 F) for temps, and the inside piece gets 60-82 F with 40 % humidity.

Oh for sure, the wood shed, on a shelf by itself.

Hard to say what the true moisture is, my MM points north of 44% on this wood.

paul bunion said:

But it will be very easy to calculate the starting % when the piece stabilizes and you can use your MM on it. It probably was near 100% on the stump. You also haven't said how long since it was cut. Wood does lose water in round form, just not as quick as when split.

With respect to drying, the initial drying is very fast, then is slows down. Depending on its surface temp you should see the stove room piece lose about 2/3 of the weight that it is going to actually lose in a matter a week or so, then another 30 days for it to stabilize at the driest you can get it. So weigh it daily if you want to get a handle on what is happening, especially in the beginning.

I've seen red maple lose 43% of its weight when originally weighed within minutes of being felled, bucked and split. Poplar will probably be similar so assuming your stuff was very fresh cut I'd expect you to see final weights in the range of 4.25-4.5 pounds. Equivalent of a piece going from 90% on a dry basis (MM reading) to 8%.

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I was cutting wood at the start of November, so 4-5 weeks since cut.

Just a small update, the inside piece went from 7lb 4 oz down to 5lb 7 oz Dec 15 to Jan 14, about 1.75 lb drop. I'm surprised by this weight drop, considering the wood is in the living room, out of the way of anything, hiding 15 feet away from the stove. It also has decent checking/cracks on the end grain as well. I'll check the wood shed piece later.

Wood Duck said:

One way to know the moisture content of the wood is to weigh it during the test, then at the end of the test completely dry both pieces in an oven and weight them. Afterward you can calculate the moisture contents based on the weights you measured.

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Is this something that can be done relatively safe at 170-200 f? How long should it take ballpark?

Finally weighed the outside piece, and it went from 7 lb 12 oz to 7 lb 10.9 oz...a whole 1.1 ounces lost. I suppose that's interesting in itself as the weather has been below freezing.

A bit early to call the race, but I think indoor piece is winning.

Wood Duck said:

I don't really know much about the best temperature to dry wood, but there is an old thread on here somewhere that discusses drying wood in an oven. I am sure 200 degrees is safe, just not sure how long it would take to dry. I would dry it a few hours, weigh it ,then dry some more. When you can't make it any lighter you have dried away all the free moisture.

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I think I'll want to weigh the pieces mid Feb, then again mid March, and possibly give it a bit of oven time then. Glad my hobbies are cheap.

I just had a quick look there, but some interesting reading. I knew poplar seasoned quick but I didn't realize it sublimated that much (if split) during the winter. Most of my poplar fall/early winter cut is still in rounds ready to be split. I should have split it during this cold snap, but i suppose winter's not over yet.