The Least Glamorous Part of Slab Sawing – Stacking and Stickering

After the fun of sawing logs is over, someone has to properly stack and sticker the whole log, then find somewhere to store it so it can dry for the next few years. This is the less exciting and glamorous part of this whole thing.

This log was end-sealed when I got it, but I’ve been going back and end-sealing it again to give it more coverage and wrap the end seal onto the surface of the slabs to more fully encapsulate the end.

I also put some end-sealer on any of the larger knots of bull’s eyes to slow down the drying in those regions and reduce the chance of larger cracks forming. 

I also spray the slabs down with Bora-Care, which makes the wood poisonous to insects that are eating it. Once they eat it, the Bora-Care will kill them. I worry about insects at this step because I don’t want extra pinholes all over the slabs from insects. But everything I sell is heat-treated, so that would also kill any insects. 

Other than that, stacking logs is just like stacking anything else, just on a much larger scale. 

Here is the full log stacked and stickered. 

I set up a base for the log to dry on, and now I get to try to maneuver the log on top of it. When I set the base for any log, I want that base to be as flat and uniform as possible, because whatever surface these logs lay on, that’s the shape that they’ll conform to. This area I have these two stacks sitting in is going to work out really nicely for drying. The tree coverage provides a lot of shade, so it helps protect the surface of the wood from UV and from the sun drying out the surface faster than the core. That’s a big cornerstone of drying: you want to have an even and uniform drying process. You’re really just waiting for the moisture in the core to migrate to the surface so it can actually be evaporated. You don’t want the gradient between the core and the surface to be too great, because then you introduce a lot more stress, a lot more cracking, and you get a lot more drying defects. 

There is even more complexity with the stuff that I dry, because I typically have more complicated pieces of wood. A nice straight-grained piece of wood is super easy to dry. My stuff, with all the crotches and the knots and the figure, is going to have all kinds of different grain orientations presenting to the surface, which all dry at different rates. 

I’ve been drying stuff like this for over 10 years now. It makes for a really nice, uniform product that has very low stress and is just an absolute dream to work with. Hopefully, you enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at drying. This is the majority of the work of processing these things. Sawing them is pretty quick in comparison to stacking and stickering. So, that’s going to do it for this one! Thank you as always for joining, I greatly appreciate it. If you have any questions or comments on drying your own wood, the sawmill, or anything back in the shop, please feel free to leave a comment. As always, I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. And ’til next time, happy woodworking!