How to Dry Maple Lumber

When drying maple lumber, the keys to great looking boards are harvesting fresh wood and drying as quickly as possible. Failure to dry quickly can result in stains to the wood. There are a variety of ways you can dry maple lumber, however the quickest way is to use a kiln. If you cannot dry your lumber right away, make sure that it is neatly stacked where it will not get rained on. This is especially important in warmer weather.

Things You'll Need

• Kiln

Instructions

1. Load the kiln with maple boards. Keep the load only 2 rows high for the first 12 to 36 hours. Keep the pile of boards under 16 feet wide. Vary the wetness and thickness of boards. Select a few boards you will be using as samples to determine when the boards are done drying and weigh them.

2. Keep the boards away from the kiln's fans as this will block the air flow. In large kilns where many board piles can be dried at once, keep the piles separated by at least 4 inches.

3. Set the kiln temperature to 110 to 120 degrees F. Do not let the temperature get over 160 degrees F. Keep the air velocity over 500 fpm. Reverse the fan air flow every 2 hours.

4. Add 1 or 2 more layers of lumber after the humidity in your kiln has been stable for at least 12 hours. Test your sample boards daily to discover moisture content (MC). Divide the original weight by the dry weight. Subtract 1 and multiply by 100 to find MC. Green maple will take 7 to 11 days in the kiln to dry. Air dried maple will take 4 to 5 days.

References

• Woodweb: 20 Steps to Drying Hard White Maple
• USDA: Drying Hardwood Lumber