Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Cheaper Wood?

21K views 50 replies 17 participants last post by  Cleo C. Hogan Jr 
#1 ·
Michael Palmer has made comments about the low price he pays per board foot for hive box lumber in his area. I am not that far from him (relatively) in SE New Hampshire but can’t seem to find comparable prices to what he has mentioned in dimensioned lumber (have checked as far as southern Maine). I am able to find similar prices in rough cut green wood from local mills so I wonder if that is what anyone is using. With that being asked, follow up questions are:

Do you use rough cut green wood?
How do you treat the green wood before building boxes with it?
Do you air dry it for XX time first?
If not, is there any issue with shrinkage as the wood dries (Ie. Boxes getting to tight for frames, etc)?
Do you then use a thickness planer to finish the stock to depth?
Have you tried hemlock (lots of old barns are made from it around here)?

Any tips on cheaper wood are appreciated!
 
#2 ·
I use rough or planed, whatever I can get cheapest after adding my cost to plane.
I would not use green wood as it is harder on the tools and continues to change and not always at a predictable rate.
If I had green lumber I would dry it for several months before making any cut.
Pine and cypress are most prevalent around here.
 
#3 ·
How do you treat the green wood before building boxes with it?
Do you air dry it for XX time first?
Courtesy of Vermont Dept of Forests, here is info on air drying of green lumber:
http://www.vtfpr.org/pdf/drylumber.pdf

If you use green lumber for hives (not kiln dried or not air dried), you will almost certainly have problems with those hive bodies as the wood reaches equilibrium.
 
#4 ·
I pick up rough cut from a local mill. Usually local mills do not cut green wood, they cut wet wood. The logs have been cut for a while and stacked whole until needed. The bees get left overs from other work unless I get going on making boxes. If the mill is not cutting slab firewood or chipping there is some slab wood cut with wane and that is thrown into the slab pile. Plenty for hives if you are there at the right time.

Kiln dry in the rain is going to swell, wet is going to shrink in the sun. My eyes and hands are a bigger problem than my wood.

Green wood shrinks more than wet. The cells have lost some internal water and most of the water is between cells when wet and not green. I rough plane to 7/8 and air dry for a while. If I needed a box and all I had was green I would cut it a little over and not worry about it after a few screws. Wood shrinks more in width than length, even in a deep with wet you will lose maybe an 8th, green maybe more but I have not needed to try green.
 
#5 ·
I tried asking for the slab scrap piles as well and most of the yard staff has dibs on it for their wood furnaces. I found a local guy that has a large wood mizer type mill so his wood may still be green not just wet.
 
#7 ·
Hemlock;
Works great if it stays wet or it stays dry. It can rot quickly if it gets wet and then drys repeatedly. That is what I find, have never read anybody say the same though. Painted box should be fine but I have not used, pine is easier to get and work. Dry hemlock it is a little hard to work as it splits unless you blunt the nail or drill. If I am going to build with hemlock I like it wet or green not dry. Nail it wet it will not split. Nail it dry it will.
 
#8 ·
I have been using pine, cypress, and poplar rough saw for years. I pick boards that are at least 10 3/4 width, either 7/8 or 1 inch thickness. I strip stack and let it air dry for approximately one year. Pine, cypress and poplar will shrink about 3/4 inch in width, ( a 10 3/4 wide board), and about 1/16 in thickness. I have never tested length.

Locally, saw mill pine is $.50 board ft, cypress is $.80 bdf, and poplar is $.46 bdf.

cchoganjr
 
#9 ·
Cleo, what kind of life do you get on the poplar?

I remember as a kid, my dad cut the poplar logs, we hauled them to the mill and built all our tobacco barns out of rough cut poplar lumber. I know the outside boxing has since rotted away on the barns, granted they were not painted regularly and not at all the last 20 years.
 
#10 ·
Unpainted poplar will last 25 to 40 years. . Virtually every barn door in Kentucky is made with poplar. Very few are ever painted. Bee boxes painted or some other preservative will last forever. It is a little heavier than pine, but it is plentiful here, and almost all my honey supers are made with poplar. One caution, you must let it season, ( 9 months to 1 year), or have it kiln dried because it will shrink about 3/4 inch in width, if you start with an eleven inch board. After seasoning, it works really well.

cchoganjr
 
#12 ·
I am half way into the experiment! $400/1000 BF hemlock, stickered it to dry.
http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n599/6minz/hemlock2.jpg
1 yr/ inch dry time, I would not use green. Last spring I made frames out of it (not side bars had a 2x6 for them). No issues yet on the100 I built.
Dewalt Thickness planer.
hemlock
Wood Some good advice here about my stickers should have been further out. Spent about a day running wood through the planer. Problem was that I have ADD real bad. I had all this planed lumber I was cutting into boxes and found I needed to do something to do with all my apples. So I changed directions and made this
http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n599/6minz/DSCF4129.jpg
Problem was I needed some white oak for the basket and grate. Found some scrap by the pound (S4S) and found that buying wood by the pound is not cost effective when you have a planer.
 
#13 ·
The article above is good on drying, as is the above info. 1 year per inch is a general time frame to get the wood down to as low (12-18% MC) as it will be until it's moved inside. In my experience poplar moves a ton so I wouldn't use it unless it's been brought in after it's dried. I wish I could get poplar for under a dollar a board foot.
 
#14 ·
If you are doing a detailed cost comparison remember that a rough cut 1x10 will usually stay wide enough for a deep, a 1x6 makes a shallow. Every log is cut a little differently and each tree drys a little differently, but I usually have enough. If not it does not get wasted.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Saltybee.... My experience is that a rough cut 10 inch will not cure and give you a 9 5/8 or 9 9/16 finished board. You will need 1/16 for surfacing the two edges, and, poplar, cypress, and pine will shrink at least 3/4 to 7/8 inch in width, which means you need at least 7/8 to one inch more rough cut, than you will need when cured and surfaced.. I have all my pine, cypress, and poplar that I buy rough cut, cut at 11 inches for deeps, and 7 inch for shallows.

One full year with the rough cut, strip stacked inside, will get the moisture content down to 11% to 15 %. Good enough for bee boxes. I normally let mine set about a year to a year and a half. If possible, purchase your rough cut, sawed from logs cut in the Winter time, especially pine. It will cure better

delber... Guess we are just lucky here, we can get poplar for anywhere from $.25 bf to $.50 bf, with most wanting $.48 bf for select, no knots, cut to 11 inch width, but, take whatever length they provide. Length doesn't really matter, so, I take whatever they provide, and they figure the bf in the bundle that I get. Most of the saw mills here are Amish and they are very nice to work with.

cchoganjr
 
#24 ·
Guess we are just lucky here, we can get poplar for anywhere from $.25 bf to $.50 bf, with most wanting $.48 bf for select, no knots, cut to 11 inch width
I would say you are lucky Cleo. Around here, I can get air dried pine at $0.75 bf, and that's the best I've been able to find. I can get green wood for $0.55 bf, and I've found a spot an hour and a half away from me that sells their unusable boards at $0.50 bf. The boards are labeled kiln dried, but the place says they are air dried. Usually they are cupping somewhat, and about one third have a crack down 1/4 of the board, sometimes more.

Even still, at $0.50 bf it beats lowes or home depot prices. And if 1/4 of the board isn't useable as a hive body, I can still trim it down and use it for other things.
 
#16 ·
Cleo,
The slower a tree grows the less it shrinks even in the same species. Edges of the log shrink more than centers. Mostly I think it depends on the mill, I find the ends are the thinnest and the middle thicker on the boards I get. The carriage wears the most in the middle of a mill.
Your right though, I would not buy a lot without trying a few boards until I knew how a mill worked out dry.
 
#18 ·
It's fine to do either with the log. Make sure you seal the end of the log though. This is very important!!! If you don't you'll end up with about a food or two of the log that won't be useable. It would still be very wet / green at the end of the year so if it were me I'd cut it up now rather than wait. I know I've passed places that have piles of logs drying down in Va I think, but they have a process of spraying water on them at certain intervals. I don't know if it was once per day, twice per day or every other day or what. All I know is they had piles of logs and I saw them spraying them with an automatic sprinkler. I would immagine that this would stop the ends from drying so fast. Regardless you'll still need to seal the ends of the boards to reduce end checks. The end grane loses moisture much faster than the face of the board causing the end to shrink before the middle of the board is ready causing end checks. (or end cracks)
 
#19 ·
Delber are you saying paint the ends of the boards?? I have never done this, and yes, I do often get a crack 4 to 6 inches long on the ends of the boards. Most of my boards are never square, and their 10 foot boards are normally 10ft, 6 inches long. That has made up for the end cracks. If paint on the ends will reduce or eliminate this, I will start painting them after they are stacked..

Thanks.

cchoganjr
 
#20 ·
#22 ·
Cheaper wood is not the same as the best wood. The more you invest the better the product. What I will do to have a box now is not what I will do to have the box I really want. A piece of wood trim inside the house is another step up.
Cheaper now or cheaper later is a whole different debate.
 
#27 ·
I agree completely, but HD and Lowes charge through the nose for their junky (premium) boards, and the best wood doesn't need to be the most expensive wood either if I can source it from a local mill for less. I wish I had the space to stack and dry boards inside.
 
#23 ·
Our local saw mill has a sprinkler system that keeps the logs that are yarded, waiting for sawing, wet, during the Summer months. They do this to keep the bark soft because the bark is removed with rolling cutters before the log is sawed. This bark is then sold for mulch.

The deal I make for pine and poplar is, $.50 a board foot, any length the mill has, they pick the boards as they cut (almost all knot free, only small solid knots, no knots on edges of board) and when they get 500 board foot they call and I go pick up, strip stack it for 12 to 18 months. I find I need 11 inch width boards to cure and have enough to cut 9 9/16 boxes after curing. All of my pine, cypress, and poplar is cut 11 inches for deeps and 7 inches for shallows.

cchoganjr
 
#29 ·
I guess I just never noticed it, but, some of the cypress boards have been painted blue.
cchoganjr[
I don't know that there's a "standard" out there, but I've seen at least a given supplier use one color paint for a given type of wood. (I went back several times for the same type of wood (curly maple) and they were all painted white, while I think walnut was blue and poplar was red) So in a stack you can see what you have.
 
#28 ·
#31 ·
Adrian. Nice Nucs. I notice you are using cleats on them. Beesource has my plans in their free library for making the D shape hand hold like the commercial boxes and a link to the video to show you how, if you want to put that type handle on them.

People might also check the Habitat for Humanity Restore for 1 X 12. I have found it there. Both shelving grade and roofing grade. They sell it cheap.

ralittefield... Yes those moisture meters are not expensive. I stack my wood in a big barn, and also stack some on the tier poles up in the barn.

cchoganjr
 
#32 ·
I am not sure you must use a moisture meter. after a while you can pickup a board and have a good idea if it is dry enough or not. It becomes a matter of to wet or dry enough rather than a moisture reading.

Warping not nearly as much of an issue in short boards. Cupping is more likely in wider boards but that one is easy to look at the end grain and see if it is likely to cup a lot or a little. All wood warps expands and contracts. The issue is how much

A rule of thumb in drying time for green wood is one year per inch of thickness. a 3/4 inch by 12 inch wide board would then need to be stacked to dry for 9 months. It takes about 2 here because it is so dry. faster drying cracks more wood. You can do the same thing in a kiln in a few days. A microwave can dry wood in minutes. I've done it and it is very interesting to do. you can actually see the wood warping, shrinking etc as it dries. Quick lesson in what to expect for any sort of grain as it dries.
 
#33 ·
A key to reducing warping / checking as the wood dries is both painting the ends, and stickering. Cutting 3/4" square (dry, not green wood) pieces to space about every foot - foot and a half and keep them in line going up the stack. I think the article above talks about stickers. I put a piece of plywood on top (with stickers under it / on top of the top board) with a few cinder blocks for weight for the top boards. I hope this makes sense.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top