An Air-Drying Technique to Control Surface Checking in Refractory Hardwoods

A device termed a moisture pallet provides a technique for sandwiching oak lumber between sheets of l/4-inch Douglas-fir plywood to greatly reduce surface checking during forced air drying. When combined with the presurfacing technique developed by the U.S. Forest Service, check-free 6/4 lowland southern red oak was produced. Using a dissection technique to reveal both open and closed checks, percent yields of 2-foot-long and l-inch or wider strips free of checking to a 3/16-inch depth were 99 for the combined treatment, 86 for pallet only, 67 for presurfacing only, and 46 for the conventional stickering method. For checks to a 7/16-inch depth, the respective percent yields were 99, 96, 86, and 68. These results show that even one of the most refractory of hardwoods can be dried free of surface checking.

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