Pine test

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joefrompa

Minister of Fire
Sep 7, 2010
810
SE PA
Hi all,

I don't have an MM nor do I care to get one (hehehe), but I thought I'd offer a test on here:

I have about 40, 30-60 pound rounds of pine. I thought I would offer to weigh all the splits that came out of one (so that any chippings would be discarded), then stack it normal with markings on each piece, and weigh them again once a month through the summer to show the progresion of weight loss.

I should be able to show the seasoning trend of pine doing this. Anyone interested or see any flaws in this reasoning?

Joe

Edit: Thinking that through, that's only about 2400 pounds of pine. I'd say I have over 3 cords worth of pine, so plenty to choose from! I'll get a piece that's VERY freshly cut into a round :)
 
Sounds like a fun experiment.
 
It would be even more interesting with both the weights and moisture measurements. Rick
 
Very generous of you to offer to ship me a moisture meter for the duration of the test. :)
 
Joe, that is a great way to experiment. Have you thought of doing this with other wood too?
 
I don't have any freshly cut wood aside from the pine - everything else has been sitting exposed for awhile (albeit in various rounds and such). Actually, I think I have some 30" long elm lengths where I could simply cut 10" off each end and use the middle to try it out.

Told my wife what I'd be doing and she was like "Oh, I thought you were gonna weigh yourself now that you are working out again."

All my wood is from neighbors or family - I have no supply on my property, and don't want to buy anything, and have very limited capacity to scrounge with my current vehicles.
 
guess this is just me, but I do not see the point in this. Pine family, cut / split / stack it for 7 to 9 months and you are good to go
 
Because almost no one on this forum has any experience in the actual seasoning trend in a measured way. We know:

1. Freshly cut wood = unseasoned

2. Wood aired out for 6-9 months = seasoned

Ok, well how about 3 months. Standard answer "probably gonna be unseasoned still"

Really? To what extent?

So my goal is to simply say "Pine will lose XX% of it's weight the first month, then XX% the second month" etc in these conditions when freshly split, allowing you to get a healthy burn after X months and reach fully seasoned status in Y months, assuming the same conditions.


Might do the same with elm.
 
I'm interested in following your test.

Anybody that has an interest in the art and science of seasoning wood is worth encouraging.

You could even halve the stacks, have one in the shade, just to indicate how much drying is done by wind alone, and how much extra drying is done by the sun and wind.

Just a thought :)
 
i'd be interested in the results, mainly because the only mature/dead trees i have are pine... and a lot of them :]
 
Looking forward to seeing the results of this test.
 
I'm expanding the test (to be setup later this week):

I'm going to split a large round in ~1/2 and then split each half into smaller chunks.

I'm going to weigh each half seperately - i.e. 1/2 #1 weighs 40 pounds and 1/2 #2 weighs 37 pounds. I'll mark them appropriately.

Then, I'm going to put #1 on top of an existing wood pile (at the very top) and put a few small rocks on them, then cover the woodpile. #2 I'm going to put ON TOP of the cover, sitting on some 1x2's or something to raise them slightly and keep them nicely exposed, just uncovered from rain.

Both will be out of direct sunlight, but one will be covered and one won' tbe.

Hopefully this will give me a good sense of the seasoning process of wood split from the same round, on the same day, put in the same spot, simply covered vs. uncovered.

Joe
 
I like it.... keep us informed professor.
 
sounds like a good test...


if its anything like last summer round here, everything will be totally dried out. covered or not
 
Yeah, I'm more interested in the progression than the end result. Everyone "knows" X wood is seasoned by Y months - but how does that seasoning actually occur over time (at least in this wood), etc.
 
Yes, sounds like a fun 'experiment' - look forward to seeing how it progresses. Cheers!
 
fossil said:
It would be even more interesting with both the weights and moisture measurements.
Click to expand...


He won't be getting any MM readings for some time with fresh-cut pine. Pine sapwood can be well over 150% MC and a meter can only read about to 30% with any accuracy. Oven-dry it or just guess, both methods are more accurate than a MM on fresh pine.


If you really want to learn something good here, I'd weigh the splits every day for about two weeks, every other day for a month, and then once a week after that. Wood dries very rapidly when first cut and split since the free water takes a lot less energy to leave the wood than does the bound water. If you want to see a true drying trend you will have to catch that quicker drying rate accurately, so more frequent weighings in the beginning will be necessary.

Also, I'll bet that when you are done you will see that an exponential decay function will fit nicely with your data. Once you can establish a constant of proportionality, you should be able to actually predict when the wood will "cross the line" into the acceptable burning range. This is also much easier to accomplish with daily weighings rather than weekly ones. If you take the time to gather the data and post it here, I will run the figures for you to find the constant (assuming you don't already know how).
 
joefrompa said:
Because almost no one on this forum has any experience in the actual seasoning trend in a measured way. We know:

1. Freshly cut wood = unseasoned

2. Wood aired out for 6-9 months = seasoned

Ok, well how about 3 months. Standard answer "probably gonna be unseasoned still"

Really? To what extent?

So my goal is to simply say "Pine will lose XX% of it's weight the first month, then XX% the second month" etc in these conditions when freshly split, allowing you to get a healthy burn after X months and reach fully seasoned status in Y months, assuming the same conditions.


Might do the same with elm.
Click to expand...

You're making some pretty rash assumptions there. Drying various woods via air-drying or kiln is a large part of the business of ALL lumber producers, so it's not like you'd be breaking new trail. Maybe you could ask around at sawmills in your region to fill in your gaps.
They will likely not use words like "seasoned" because of total fuzziness of meaning.
USDA/USFS would be a likely resource, too.
 
Hehehe, honestly I let this one die. I started it and realized I don't have an appropriate scale. I'd need a digital readout (or a very fine reading scale) to give me precise measurements of weight change. I wasn't willing to spend the money and, as my wood burning days have progressed, I've become alot more relaxed and less uptight :)
 
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