Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1865-01-09
SEASONING OF Lumber ana FIsaber.

liable information:
It is evident that the seasoning and dry
ing Of lumber is not properly understood
by the community. If there ever was a
time in which the best mode was needed
it is now. Every manufacturing estsb-
lishment in the country is taxed to its ut
most capacity, and must, for years to come,
to supply the demand for buildings, car
riages, wagons, respers and mowers, rail
cars, bridges, sash, blinds and doors, csbi-
net, cooper, chair, tub and rail, and other
work, with gun carriages, gun stocks,
pianos, melodeons, organs, ships, etc, all
of which require seasoned lumber.
The question is, how can this seasoned
lumber be obtained, when the demand for
lumber follows close to the saw 2 Indeed,
it is very difficult to manufacture lumber
as rapidly as for immediate use.
Four years in the open air is none to
much time to prepare even two-inch lum-
Der for good work. Oak lumber, such as
is used for gun carriages, car sills, etc, will
not be properly seasoned by an exposure
to the air for ten years, while large por.
tion of 1t will be destroyed by eramacausis
or dry rot, long before that time. have
6AkEhCk0N nv kl0 AAtC VI Of6I WV DOuuOb
per NJ feet, board measure, from this kind
of lumber that had been dried under cover
10 year, and at the same time cause a
shrinksge in its size of I inch to the foot
have made the seasoning and drying
of lumber study of more than eighteen
years, and / now propose to make few
suggestions, in sufficiently brief manner
to come within the rule of brevity which
you have adopted, and if the matter is not
sufficiently explicit for your readers will
answer inquiries by mail.
To season lumber is tocosgulste its veg
etable slbumen, and render it insoluble in
cold water. Lumber may be seasoned and
not dried, and dried and not seasoned. It
requires both to be perfect.
all wood contains albumen more or less
This albumen is precisely like the albumen
of the egg, except trace Of sulphur in
the egg. If this slbumen is simply dried
inthe airit will shrink andsWell with every
change of atmosphere. Common air dry
ing will never fix slbumen, nor will it at
any length of time perform the most thor
ough shrinkage. Cold water hot air, and
steam, may extract Rlbumen, and the aiI
may do the drying. But all lumber and
timber is injured in its strength
and in its beauty of finish by the loss of
its slbumen. The slbumen properly CO.
agulated and left in the pores of the lum.
Der is as valuable as paint OF Varnish fol-
Its preservation or beauty of finish. Be-
sides, no lumber that has lost its slbumen
by soaking or steaming can be ever re-
duced by air drying to its smallest posi-
| bIo eiza oinoa tba ofr dr1-s 4ba o,,Es;do a.,
and forms an enamel that will not shrink
when the inside becomes dry. It must
all shrink together, in order to make the
lumber solid for fine finish. If the pores
of the lumber are dried open it cannot
make good finish.
Now, what seeuIs to be desirable, is tc
be able to put tree in the forest, manu-.
facture the lumber, season it thoroughly
dry it sufficiently to reduce it to its small
est possibls size, and be able to manufsc.
ture it into anything, from clothes-pir
to ship, during the same week it is taken
from the stump.
I have discovered precisely such mode
and can now direct or show any one, SC
that they can have better seasoned lumber
in week than they can make in the all
in q year of weeks. And what is still
more surprising, it has the following rare
combination of qualities, to wit; greater
rapidity, more thorough seasoning and
drying, and cheaper than any other process
known to science, whether natural or arti
fetal If need be, the whole may be
creosoted for its preservation, at the same
time, and at merely nominal expense.
The process is simply the use Of super
heated stesm-superheated in particles, OF
one particle at a time-and used in a
moderately tight room, requiring no more
pressure than simply to balance the at
mosphere and exclude the air. The steam
may be made from the moisture of the
drying substance, or in any other cheap
and convenient way, to be used in
the place of air for conveying
caloric to the substances to be seasoned
or dried. This steam also keeps the
pores of the lumber open, penetrates to the
center without forming an enamel on the
outside, and when the whole is sufficiently
hot the lumber is not only seasoned, but
the drying commences at the center, which
is the last place reached by any other
mode of drying, if, indeed, it is ever
reached at all by such modes. Besides
steam has 80 times the power of motion
and absorption that common air has.-.
Steam also holds 1000 degrees of latent
heat, which assists in preventing waste of
fuel When this process is properly ar
ranged and managed there is scarce a pcs.
sibility of any escapeof heat, unless it be
in the steam generated from the driving
lumber, and only passes out when it is in
excess in the drying room. 1t will, there
fore, readil be seen that lumber which is
continually surrounded by such a steam
atmosphere cannot be dried in one part
more rapidly than it can in anOther, and
must shrink alike.
By this process the shrinking Of the
lumber is all done before the lumber is en-
tirely dry, and the more moisture there
can be left in any lumber, after the sea-
soning and shrinking are completed, the
stronger, tougher, and more durable the
timber. This process, therefore, is capable
of seasoning and shrinking the lumber,
and still leave more moisture in it, or it
may leave it drier than any other mode.
Having already expended nearly $780,
900 in experiments with this new princi-
pie of seasoning and drying lumber, grain,
neur, meal, fruit, vegetables, tobacco, salt,
wool, fax, &c, / should be pleased, if i
had the time and room, to give you the re-
suit of experiments with each, such as the
drying of fax in an hour, directly from
the wster-rotting tank, SO that it will dress
better in any machine than by air-drying
any length Of thine, but this article would
soon be too long to come within the aensi-
bic rule of breVity established by the
Scientific american. 81. G. BULKLET.
Cleveland, Ohio, Dec. Il, 1884.