Anyone dry kindling in a pickup bed?

[bsa0021]

I get quite a bit of kindling when I split my wood which I put into a plastic trash can. Obviously, it doesn't dry inside the can and I was wondering if it would dry faster if I put it into my truck bed for a week or two. I've heard of spreading it on a blacktop drive but that won't work on my gravel drive.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

I get quite a bit of kindling when I split my wood which I put into a plastic trash can. Obviously, it doesn't dry inside the can and I was wondering if it would dry faster if I put it into my truck bed for a week or two. I've heard of spreading it on a blacktop drive but that won't work on my gravel drive.

There is at least one member of this forum who sometimes dries his wood in a microwave, but I think he just does that because he's too cheap to buy a moisture meter.

I just stack my kindling in with my regular wood stack, helps fill up those empty spaces.

 

[firefighterjake]

I get quite a bit of kindling when I split my wood which I put into a plastic trash can. Obviously, it doesn't dry inside the can and I was wondering if it would dry faster if I put it into my truck bed for a week or two. I've heard of spreading it on a blacktop drive but that won't work on my gravel drive.

My own feeling . . . time is your friend . . . not your pick-up bed . . . not the pavement . . . not the magical pixie powder. Time . . . well time and size . . . smaller splits season faster, but as for just carting around your kindling for a week or two . . . I don't think you would see much, if any, gain in seasoning time.

 

[LLigetfa]

I make my kin'lin out of dry wood so it needs no further drying. I store it in the house.

The splitter trash gets spread out on the ground and keeps my wood out of the dirt.

 

[thewoodlands]

I get quite a bit of kindling when I split my wood which I put into a plastic trash can. Obviously, it doesn't dry inside the can and I was wondering if it would dry faster if I put it into my truck bed for a week or two. I've heard of spreading it on a blacktop drive but that won't work on my gravel drive.

I like to stack ours outside in the sun and wind, then in late fall I cover then bring in has needed.

zap

 

[smokinj]

I get quite a bit of kindling when I split my wood which I put into a plastic trash can. Obviously, it doesn't dry inside the can and I was wondering if it would dry faster if I put it into my truck bed for a week or two. I've heard of spreading it on a blacktop drive but that won't work on my gravel drive.

Put some wholes the can to get some air in there and the extra heat build up could even help.

 

[Jags]

Hmmm....just thinking out loud. Buy a couple of cheap laundry baskets. Lots of air movement and easy to transport.

Me, I just throw it into a barrel under roof. Splitter trash is small enough that a good summer nap out of the rain gets it good and dry for me.

 

[Wood Duck]

I think the back of the truck is a good idea - lots of sun, occasional high winds, hopefully no standing water after a rain. In the summer, kindling should dry fast in a pickup bed. Make sure you park in the sun.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Out of laziness to empty the truck, um, yes. Not on purpose though. I also dry a couple extension cords, 2 different height trailer balls, if the tonneau is on like it is now I am also drying a set of ear muffs and eyes. I know there is a 16" chain drying in there along with a hedge trimmer. And a gallon tank of gas. And a pressure washer. And 2 deep cycle marine batteries. A set of muffs so I can run the boat out of the water. Rubber gloves that were needed for the oxalic acid hull cleaner....

Matt

 

[Battenkiller]

There is at least one member of this forum who sometimes dries his wood in a microwave, but I think he just does that because he's too cheap to buy a moisture meter.

:lol:


I finally broke down and bought one. $12.99 at HF, but I decided to splurge. It'll take forever to pay for itself, but I figure I'm worth it.


I still use the microwave for critical work, though, like determining the specific gravity of this block of black locust (SG = 0.67). Did a moisture content determination as well and got 27% MC. Musta screwed something up, 'cause the HF meter said 33% MC, and they don't lie. Ah, well... what's 6 percentage points between friends. :roll:

 

[bsa0021]

I don't like to take perfectly good wood and make it into kindling when I have so many pieces of kindling from my splitting process. My other thought was to cut holes in the bottom of the trash can and some how put a fan blowing down through the wood and out the bottom of the can.

 

[Spikem]

With the scrap that I come up with when splitting, I throw it into a trash barrel and simply leave it in my cellar. I have a dehumidifier that runs and it dries out in a hurry (a week or so).

 

[Lumber-Jack]

There is at least one member of this forum who sometimes dries his wood in a microwave, but I think he just does that because he's too cheap to buy a moisture meter.

:lol:


I finally broke down and bought one. $12.99 at HF, but I decided to splurge. It'll take forever to pay for itself, but I figure I'm worth it.


I still use the microwave for critical work, though, like determining the specific gravity of this block of black locust (SG = 0.67). Did a moisture content determination as well and got 27% MC. Musta screwed something up, 'cause the HF meter said 33% MC, and they don't lie. Ah, well... what's 6 percentage points between friends. :roll:

LOL
I was wondering if you were gona pick up on that.


Say Batten, I'd be curios to see if you come up with that 6% error consistently, or if it is a variable thing.

 

[Battenkiller]

Say Batten, I'd be curios to see if you come up with that 6% error consistently, or if it is a variable thing.

Well, my microwave experiments are over for the season, so I can't answer that. :roll: :lol:

Sorry, that was a low blow aimed at moisture meters in general, but I didn't tell the whole tale. I never said it was an "error", just that there was a difference. Truth is, though, it would probably be a pretty consistent finding. The meters are just a bunch of resistors and whatnot, with a digital readout. As long as the batteries are fresh, there should be pretty good precision among readings. The problem is that the MM only reads about 1/8" into a given surface, but the oven-dry method accounts for every bit of water that was originally in the wood.

I split that locust round in half and used the Harbor Freight MM to take a reading from an inner face, just like everyone has been recommended to do here on this forum. However, drying wood actually has a moisture gradient acrosst its thickness. That is, in fact, how it dries. As air movement carries away water molecules from the surface, the outside gets drier and internal water then diffuses along this gradient to the outer surfaces until the wood eventually reaches the equilibrium moisture content (EMC) determined by the relative humidity it is stored in. With the oven-dry determination, I cut a slice across the grain, about 2" from the end and about 1" thick. This slice included all the drier wood on the outside, plus the wetter wood on the inside. As long as there is a still a diffusion gradient in the wood, the oven-dry method will always show a lower MC than using a MM on a freshly split inner face.

Then, there is the lack of discrimination between wood types in the cheaper meters. All MMs are calibrated using doug fir as a reference, otherwise, they wouldn't agree with each other. The expensive meters have programs that allow you to compensate for the differences in electrical resistance (usually small, but larger at the higher MC range) between wood types. There are tables on the Internet that allow you to convert your readings, but first you have to be sure of the species you have. Seems lots of folks aren't so sure what they have. I knew I had black locust, but I never went to the table to do the conversion because I really didn't care about MC, I was trying to determine the specific gravity of the locust to compare it with the average SG quoted in the literature. Most sources say 0.69, I got 0.67. Pretty damn close, especially considering I was impatient and scorched the wood pretty bad, releasing at least some of the non-water weight (lots and lots of dense smoke) into my kitchen, and putting a crack in it as well (which, naturally, is filled with air only). Except for those two things, I think I might have gotten it spot on at 0.69.


This brings up another interesting use for microwave drying for folks who aren't sure what species that have on hand. It'd be very informative to know the specific gravity to compare with the known range of SG for the species you suspect (or hope) it is. If the SG turns out to be 0.45, for example, well... it ain't ash, oak, hickory or locust for sure.

A big help would be to dry it in the oven or microwave until it stops losing weight, then figure out the volume. Easiest way at home is to cut it into a block with a sharp saw and then multiply the face width x face depth x face length (in millimeters). Now weigh it on the kitchen scale (in grams). Divide the volume in millimeters by 1000 to get the volume in centimeters, then divide that volume by the weight in grams to get the specific gravity. Easy-peasy once you know how to do it. ;-)