Drying fir logs through knots?

[dougstove]

Hi - I am dropping ~60 balsam fir to make a very small cabin next year. The quality is poor but I want to clear them in any case.
I am wondering if the knot bases left from limbing will help with drying; I am taking ~~5-10% of the total bark off the trunks while limbing.
The climate is high humidity but the site is windy.
Should I continue and fully debark as I stack? Or leave until spring? cheers Doug

 

[EbS-P]

Hi - I am dropping ~60 balsam fir to make a very small cabin next year. The quality is poor but I want to clear them in any case.
I am wondering if the knot bases left from limbing will help with drying; I am taking ~~5-10% of the total bark off the trunks while limbing.
The climate is high humidity but the site is windy.
Should I continue and fully debark as I stack? Or leave until spring? cheers Doug

Not much/no drying will happen until it’s split. Fell it / stack it where it won’t rot and where bucking will be easier.

 

[Max W]

Hi - I am dropping ~60 balsam fir to make a very small cabin next year. The quality is poor but I want to clear them in any case.
I am wondering if the knot bases left from limbing will help with drying; I am taking ~~5-10% of the total bark off the trunks while limbing.
The climate is high humidity but the site is windy.
Should I continue and fully debark as I stack? Or leave until spring? cheers Doug

I’m reading this as you are using the logs to build the cabin and want to know when the best time is to debark them. I haven’t done a lot of debarking but have found that it comes off better green, with the sap still wet. I used to have a spud tool made from a section of leaf spring let in and welded to a piece of pipe. Knots make it go harder.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Fell it / stack it where it won’t rot and where bucking will be easier.

That's going to make for some pretty poor building material.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Hi - I am dropping ~60 balsam fir to make a very small cabin next year.

Okay, we've got a 60 foot balsam. Singular. One tree.

The quality is poor but I want to clear them in any case.

So what quality are you talking about and what is the, "them" in this sentence?

I am wondering if the knot bases left from limbing will help with drying;

What is a "knot base"? Are you asking if the places where you cut off limbs will help with drying? If so, of course they will. Any removal of bark will help. How much? Hard to say, but probably not much.

Should I continue and fully debark as I stack? Or leave until spring? cheers Doug

The sooner you debark, the sooner it starts drying. Keeping the moisture IN and the world OUT is what bark is there for. It does a pretty good job at it.

 

[dougstove]

Hi;
Dropping about 60 balsam fir trees, 6" to 12" at the butt, getting 8'-20' logs from each.
(in my field, '~' means 'approximately').
They will indeed be poor building material, but I am getting rid of them for forest upgrading purposes, and using them to practice building a small shelter.
Balsam fir also has tick-repellent properties, which is a factor.
I am limbing off the trunks as I go, removing ~ 5-10% of the total trunk bark as I trim off the limbs
Following comments, I will aim to debark as I stack.
cheers Doug

 

[dougstove]

Also, btw, diffusion through an array of small holes through a surface can be faster than diffusion from the same area, uncovered. Counterintuitive, but can be true; I wondered if the bases of knots might act that way. I will leave some trunks with bark to see.

 

[mr meener]

one time I had to debark a dog