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It could be said that the
drying of hardwood lumber is an exact science - that no
two people do exactly the same. What most would
agree is that it is the attention to detail that
determines drying quality. We believe that the
lumber nature provides is worthy of our attention to
detail.
Key
Processes To Our Success Are:
Green material
quickly placed in a building where our operators can
control critical elements of drying. This is called
pre-drying. Controlling the temperature, humidity,
and air flow allows us to avoid defects including
checking, stain, cup and warp. The result is
uniformly dried lumber that remains flat and maintains its
bright natural color.
Our Pre-drier
contains 30 bays that hold in excess of 2,500,000 board
feet of lumber in process. Zones are laid out to dry
each species and thickness independently.
We pre-dry our lumber
to 35% moisture. Final drying takes place in the
kilns. There, the moisture content will be reduced to 6 -
8%. As important as final moisture, is the uniformity
of that moisture. Lumber that is 2% at its shell and
10% at its core may have a cross section moisture content
of 6%, but is not uniform and has a great deal of stress.
The conditioning process must relieve this stress.
This is a process where steam is introduced to relax the
shell and eliminate the stress that drying can cause.
Our lumber is always conditioned and properly stress
relieved. Conditioning adds 24 or more hours to the
process, but is one of the details that makes up quality
kiln drying.
We currently operate
seven kilns that have a total capacity of approx. 600,000
board feet. The orchestrated efforts between
pre-drier and kilns allows us to properly dry 2,000,000
board feet of lumber of various hardwood species and
thickness per month.
Mr. Randy Rickmon
operates our kilns and pre-drier. Randy is a graduate
of the University of Purdue's forestry department.
He has been our kiln operator for nearly 20 years. |
