Band Saw Lumber-- Sawing Firewood into Usable Boards. 

There is a part 2 to this video, but it’s not likely to ever be made. It would show me patiently staring at this stack of wood for a year - even Travis’s considerable skill with time-lapse photography couldn’t make that interesting. Nonetheless, there is some important information to gleaned, beginning with the reason behind my patience. This is not to let the wood dry, as is sometimes presumed, but to let it stabilize. Wood is in constant motion, owing to its unique relationship with water. Wood is hygroscopic, it is constantly absorbing and releasing water as the conditions of its environment change. It swells when it takes on water, and shrinks when releasing it. But it doesn’t move equally in all directions. On the average, a board moves up to 8% of its dimension tangent to the annual rings, 4% radial to those rings, and 0.1% along their axis, parallel to the wood grain. This uneven movement can cause the wood to warp, cup, and twist as it absorbs and releases moisture. It is extremely prone to this distortion during the drying process. When a tree is first felled, it’s chock full of water. There are, in fact, two types of water in green (freshly cut) lumber - “free” water that fills the cells, and “bound” water that saturates the cellulose fibers that make up the cell walls. As it dries, wood loses its free water first. This may take several months depending on the thickness of the boards you’ve cut, and the wood shrinks only a little during this stage. But as it begins to lose the bound water, it shrinks at a faster rate. Because the outsides of the board dry faster than the core, the uneven shrinking causes the boards to warp, twist, and cup - unless you do something to prevent it. Fortunately, wood also “creeps” - that is, you can get the cellulose fibers to realign and change the shape of the board simply by applying constant pressure. This is why sawyers carefully stack freshly cut boards in evenly spaced layers to dry - the weight of the stack itself provides the pressure needed to convince the fibers to cooperate and keep the boards flat. Often they put additional weight on top of the stack where the boards aren’t under enough pressure to prevent distortion. In small stacks there’s not enough weight to provide the necessary pressure. So I added the baling wire loops to generate that pressure. When the wires are tight enough to hold the boards without shifting, they will also keep the boards relatively flat. While it's drying, store your wood in an unheated, un-airconditioned, un-dehumidified space. (All these things alter the relative humidity, and the whole purpose of this exercise is for the wood to reach equilibrium with the prevailing RH in your geographic location. Only then does the wood stabilize.) A shed, a carport, or a barn works well. You can also stack the wood outside, off the ground, and cover it with exterior plywood or roofing to ward off the rain. Leave the sides of the stack open to the wind so the air can circulate. Avoid tarps. Unless properly "tented" so it doesn't touch the wood, a tarp may trap moisture and encourage fungi to grow. A few months down the road, there’s suddenly something happening! There’s some movement in this monotonous Part 2 video as I yawn, pick up my screwdriver, and check the wires. As the wood shrinks, the wires will slowly loosen and the pressure decreases. You may have to tighten a few wires to keep the pressure where it should be. The wires are aligned radially with the annual rings (where the movement is less), so you won’t have to do this often. But it is something to check on every month or so. After drying a year per inch (25 mm) of thickness, the wood will have reached equilibrium with the relative humidity in its location. It’s not dry - it never dries completely. Because it is hygroscopic, wood retains about 1% moisture content for every 5% of relative humidity. If the relative humidity in the barn where you’ve stored it is 50%, the wood will have about 10% moisture content. After some time has passed, you may want to test the moisture content. If you don't have a moisture meter, cut a block from a board at least 3 inches (8 centimeters) in from an end. Weigh it on a sensitive scale (wet weight), place the block in an oven for 2 hours at 200-250 degrees to dry it out, and weigh it a again (dry weight). Subtract the dry weight from the wet weight and divide the result by the wet weight. Multiply that result by 100 -- that will give you the moisture content in per cent (%). Wood normally stabilizes at 8% to 12% moisture content, depending on where you live. Once you're sure the wood is no longer continually losing water, it’s ready to be worked. Or almost. There’s another step to this drying process. The relative humidity in your barn is not quite the same as in your shop. So bring the stack into the shop and let it rest for two weeks letting the moisture content in the wood arrive at equilibrium with the relative humidity in the shop. (Stage directions: Nick stops staring at the stack in the barn and brings it into his shop. Curtain falls for 14 days to denote the passing of two weeks.) This is called “shop drying,” and it’s a critical part of the process. Fortunately, it’s also the last. Time to snip those wires and make something. See you in a year - and two weeks.

this is the reason I love the internet, just that man, sharing knowledge.

Can there be anything more satisfying in life than building a piece of furniture from a tree you have cut down and milled yourself ?.

I'm 50 years old and learned something new today , Thank You very much !

This gentleman can be a really good story teller with his voice. Honestly I don't need to know any of this stuff but the video is so authentic I watched till the end anyways.

This was so interesting and informative! I really enjoyed the video and your presentation!

Wow. A man that actually knows something worth knowing. Awesome video. Thank you for sharing, sir. Good to know there are real men like you still out there. Salute.

You, sir, not only do a wonderful job of explaining how to accomplish this task, but the way in which you explain it is a pleasure to watch. You have a great "stage" presence, and I look forward to watching more of your videos.

I use cheap woodglue at the end of the board. put it on with a paint brush then i use news paper, the news paper has woodfiber in them and then i use more woodglue over the paper. This way the wood will never crack. I learnd this metod of my grandfather. We all have our metods for the endgrain. As allways great video

I love your videos it's like sitting down to a lesson in school from your favorite teacher. Keep up the great work!

I like your wire binding trick at the end. Keeps it under tension and still moveable.

You give dimensions in mm! Someone who understands the imperial/metric pain.

By far, among the best woodworking videos I’ve seen, and I’ve seen A WHOLE LOT! I wish I came by your videos sooner, but sure am thankful I did come to find it. God bless you my friend, a true woodworker you are!

It gives me such great pleasure to finally find a new/old take on some of my all time favorite PBS shows! I can’t wait to dig into this show!! Thanks

I've had this video on my watchlist for a while now. I am so happy I finally got around to watching it. The guy is fun to watch and gives clear instructions. Now I am off to watch the update.

You have a knack for covering topics that I am capable of approaching in my garage shop and are actually worth trying. Also very motivating to see it done on the tool I own already.

Thank you for showing us a way to make boards with tools that most of us have. I love your channel.

I thought I knew what there was to know about resawing from logs. I still learned something new. Full of info and easy to digest. You are a wonderful teacher sir! Subscribed!!!

Beginning woodworker here. What a great tip this was. I was contemplating if I could justify a bandsaw investment for doing veneers , but what a great usage of a bandsaw this is. Now I get more use of my chainsaw as well.

At 8am after working all night I wasn't particularly looking for a wood working video but here I am. Thoroughly enjoyed the video since I've been considering picking up a hobby.

Very nice for small boards. Securing down your boards to the stickers is something a lot of people forget to do. I’ve done lumber with an Alaskan chainsaw set up. But that’s for big boards. Thank you for showing

its timeeeeee ...... i have waited for that year and im back....

I am so glad I found this channel Reminds me of the carpentry masters I was apprenticed to in 1970. Boy I miss those Greatest generation Men and Women.

Can I say that I just love this guy. I swear, I'm 50 years old and *I STILL* want him to be my kindly, wise uncle teaching me how to use a router without losing bits of my epidermis.

Great video! I was given some cherry wood and was wondering how to mill it. And thank you so much for mentioning both metric and imperial measurements. Your video can be enjoyed world-wide now

This was the best video describing this process. I have stumbled through cutting maple veneer and boards from a tree cut down in my yard. I am going to try this.

Lead Angle! So that’s what you call the way the bandsaw blade twists! Now I know how to deal with that on my bandsaw, thanks. Will be watching you for a whole year to make sure I don’t miss you using this new lumber. So many good tips in one video and I have watched a lot of videos in my time!

you are highly intelligent and remarkable gentleman

Thank you for sharing you knowledge with a young man like me. Hopefully one day I can pass this down to another.

Awesome idea for saving a ton of money on wood. Great for small projects. Excellent tips as well when it comes to storage and drying.

Subscribed for the metric and imperial measurements and no-fluff instructions. great Vid. I'm now off to look at your other content. Thanks from Australia.

I spent some time in the mountains of North Carolina and a friend had an actual band saw mill. We would get entire trees and pick them up with a flatbed truck and saw them, green, into 1 1/2” very long and wide slabs and stack them outside of his shop in the yard. My friend made sculptural furniture out of this wood and i turned stool seats on a lathe and made stools from them. The wood was beautiful. my time in the mountains was too short, but these were good days. Rebuilding very old woodworking machinery bought for cheap, firing up the wood stove and generally just making all kinds of cool stuff to sell in the local craft stores in the mountains. The boards you can make from this beat anything you buy in the lumber store. Good video.

It's been almost exactly a year now to the day and waiting in anticipation for that video you promised. Can't wait to see what you will be making with that wood. Thanks for all the great content and love your video's.

Dude I thought I knew something about lumber. You sir are the Master. Thank you for all the knowledge you have given me (in just a few videos). I look forward to applying the techniques and wisdom you have shared.

Thanks again, Nick! I shall look at the prunings from my apple, fig and pear trees a lot more judiciously from now on.

i dont have any of these tools, i dont work with wood often, but i still couldnt stop watching this till the end :D

I've got it marked on the calendar. I look forward to joining you in one year. Thank you, for sharing your knowledge, it's always appreciated!

I've been wrestling with this very problem the past few weeks. I settled on a chainsaw to do the initial trimming, then a jointer to square the wood up, then the bandsaw, then the table saw. My issue has been that I'm limited by the height of my table saw blade. This is fine for my purposes, but I see the advantages to doing it your way. I also produce a lot more waste than you do. Thanks for the lesson!

It's really great to hear the metric measurements in there alongside your imperial ones - thanks! Looking forward to the project using the lumber in 3 months' time ☺️

This video is very helpful to me. I will be watching this many times so that I may re-saw my boards on my bandsaw. Thank you.

Nice trick on clamping the stack. A reminder to everyone to apply clamping pressure over your stickers and keep your stickers centered over each other or you will encourage distortion of the wood.

Superb and industry leading hosting and education.

I just recently stumbled upon your videos and when you said a year, i of course groaned and then i looked at the time stamp of 2 yrs ago and now im off to watch that video.

Thankyou so much for this tutorial, I used your bale wire method to sticker and cinch down some green hard maple lumber I processed down to one inch thick usable lumber. Sealed the ends with anchorseal, with any luck I'll have some nice boards in a year. I might just make the same box you made with the wood, I bought the plans.

I love this channel

now im gonna have to get a small bandsaw cause ive been looking at doing this with a chainsaw.

Love it to hear and see your video`s, it makes a late woodworking beginner enthousiastic, greets from the Netherlands.

I wish most RU-vid instruction were as concise informative and entertaining as your video "Thank YOU"

Ого, отличный способ не держать гнёт на досках при сушке! Я доски заготавливаю с помощью бензопилы. Великолепно! Спасибо за науку!

Hi! Love the channel (glad YT showed it to me). I do have a question, though: I do not have a bandsaw (yet), so this might explain the question. But if the saw blade has a lead, what is the fence good for? or does it depend on the saw blade? Thanks and cheers from Switzerland 🇨🇭

I swear you will forget more than i will ever know! this is a master at work!

How have I not know about this guy. I watched several videos trying to figure this out a few years ago. This is exactly what you need to know.

i dont even woodwork , why did i've watch that ? ...

Wow your videos are great , I could listen to you all day. very well explained and thx for including metric for us South Africans

Finding the lead angle! That tip alone solved so many of my bandsaw issues! Thank you for the great presentation

I am a joiner here in the uk 🇬🇧 and late in life but hay you always learn something everyday thanks for your video stay safe 👍👏👏

I recently got a job at a wood/Lumber shop. Basically, we make custom orders and parts but we also sell exotics and domestics. even slabs. But there's been a shop there for 50 years. and I am forever grateful that the old guys kept their scraps. I find some pretty wild stuff in those dusty corners. One was some old apple tree logs. Not properly dried so they're pretty cracked but I think I can save a good chunk using this method!

You, sir, have a really calming and fatherly voice. That alone makes me want to subscribe. Thank you for the very helpful videos and advise

Nice, miniaturized version of the real deal but following the same principles. Well done

Never thought of using my bandsaw!...brilliant!

Like fine wine, fine wood ages with time, patience, and hospitable conditions. Thank you for another great video....I'm still trying to master that hammer twirl...

This was incredibly well explained and very clear thank you! Also thank you for including metric and freedom units!

I've only found your channel today and I have to day it is one of my favourite USA based channels, not only because your content is top quality but also because you tell us Europeans the Metric conversion! Thank you so much!

I hope you're doing great and living your best life.

You just gave me the idea of using eye bolts with springs to hold the sood together, that way it's always under tension, even after it has dried a bit.

I have woodworked for a couple of years, and these are such practical videos! Im happy to learn more from someone so experienced than me since no one i know likes woodworking. Thanks for these videos!😊

Two videos in, subbed. Excellent content. I can imagine the rest will be equally pleasing and informative. Thanks a bunch Nick!

This is fast becomming my favorite Channel.

This is an absolutely fabulous video. I've been looking for something like this for the last year since I started getting into woodworking.

You are awesome! Your videos are so helpful. Props for using metric and imperial measurements in your videos.

simple solution to something I was trying to do and the planing...simple!!

You won me with the forward and backward hammer spin at the intro.

My dad and i have been considering milling our own flooring. This will definitely be useful information

Good morning, I am new to your site, however I'm retired and have been a tinkers for years. You are 100% correct about being happy with your own sawn wood. I was getting bored and found wood supplies so expensive here in Ct so having a property full of hard and soft woods, decided to build a sawmill 6 years ago. I sawed and stacked, air dried for 2 years and at the end, used that wood to rebuild my complete pine kitchen cabinets system. (is you like pine). I have learned many things along the way, 1/4 cut can be much harder. Cutting and curing your own lumber sure is a money saver when one is retired. Regards.

"I happen to like hand planing" put a smile on my face :) Carry on with the good work, Sir!

You could easily do T.V. you have the skills to be an amazing host! Very charismatic!

My dad watched the new yankee workshop. I have this channel. Im so glad I found it.

I like that you are using some old Shopsmith equipment.

I cut and stickered my first log yesterday thanks to your video! Now I just have to be patient for it to dry out.

I love how he explains lenght in inches and cm, I'm from europe and it's really appreciated ! Thanks a lot for the great quality content you give us, sir !

Beginner woodworker (@ 67) ,that was awesome. Thanks

Your guidance is highly professional and the way you explain the ideas is also so easy to catch. I have never got the idea of exact time period for the drying of woods until now but as per your advice it sounds good.

Tu forma de explicar es increíble y 100% didáctica. Gracias por añadir el sentido del humor mientras lo haces. Gracias por compartir tu conocimiento. Fue una gran suerte encontrar tu canal Nick. Saludos de México 🇲🇽

Yay just found Nick again after missing his videos from the old SS days, and so happy to see the camera quality is so much better.

The finer technical tips you share make these videos a treasure !

Fantastic video. Rarely have I learned as much about some aspect of woodworking in so little time.

When I served my time as a carpenter joiner we used to use large rip saws for our initial cuts.

Very nice and simple explained👏 Thank you for that. It will help me a lot to realize my small projects…

Love it. I will certainly be back in a year to see the product made from it. Patience is the real secret behind working with wood, and 1 crucial to learn early

So glad i found your channel. I rate it up there with essential craftsman in terms of useful and sage instruction. This is the type of instruction many today never got growing up, and it is very cool that you're doing it.

Quite an interesting method of harvesting wood. Now I also paint the ends of the boards. Thanks for the advice!

I had no idea about band saw lead. I always thought it was just me doing something wrong. You have blown my mind.

actual wood working knowledge on youtube.

WELL, as they say on Perkins Builders Brothers, "That's one way to do it." I've been a Cribbage player from 'day 1.' One of my hobbies is taking (larger, 3" diameter or there abouts) tree limbs I've pruned off my oak and pine trees and used them to make live edge cribbage boards. I don't have a bandsaw so I'm stuck with 'alternate plan B' for cutting the boards, but the rest of the techniques work great. "ROCK ON, Nick!"

I wish I was half as good at making an interesting video as this guy is. I was totally engaged the whole time. Also, can I just say: Such great taste in decor on that shelf in his background.

Relaxing to watch ! Just bought a 14’’ band saw.. So I will definitivelly try this!

love the way you explain and present. much better than all those fast guys. keep it up!

Thank you so much for sharing both imperial and metric measurements!

As a woman I was only taught woodshop at school for half a year, and that most certainly was not enough to get anything I learned to stick, nor teach enough to begin with. However I ended up working in construction and have had several different "manly" jobs. Everybody around me had been taught at least the basics at some point or pretended to know what they were doing, and no one ever bothered to explain anything further than maybe showing how a machine turned on and off and how not to cut my fingers off (ended up nailing myself to a house frame, through my finger, with a nailgun, though). I have found youtube a brilliant source to finally understand how and why to do things the proper way, and judging by this video I just stumbled upon, your videos might finally open up some things I've been pondering on. I found this video and your explanation in the comments extremely helpful and informative. Thank you so much!

I love your videos. Funny, informative and great tips and tricks. Well done to your behind the camera team too! Many thanks.