The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1883-09-26
ArtiflciaIIy Dried LUMBER

Thoroughly dried lumber is hard to
buy nowadays" said the manager of a
piano manufactory in this city, ''and If
you don't have dry lumber in making
pianos you might as well not make
them"
s.How do you manage, then, for you
make many pianosP" the reporter
1--WE have dry rooms, or kilns, in
which we put the lumber and season ii
ourselves. If it were not for our dry
rooms we would have to shut up shop.
We buy the best seasoned lumber that
we can get, and leave it in our dry kilns
from one to three weeks. Then we take
out board and try it, and if it is not
thoroughly seasoned we shut up the
kiln again"
"How do you tell when it is sea
soned?"
sIn several ways. We examine the
sawdust, crumple up the shavings, OBJ
serve the odor of the wood, and the
way the saw or plane goes through it.
Even then we are often deceived, and
when the wood is made up and
vanished, it cracks, warps, or splits,
plainly showing that it was not fully
dried
..Dried lumber is necessary not only
in the making of pianos, but also in the
manufacture of furniture, holdings
and all kinds of woodwork. I'll guar
antee that you have seen the back of 8
fine-looking hardwood bedstead split
from side to side, or the lid of desE
cracked, to say nothing of windows and
doors shrinking so that you have to use
Al - @f 81 fr
keep out the wind. Well, all this comes
from using unseasoned lumber. 1t makes
up neatly enough, but when it is ex-
posed to the action of the atmosphere
and the moisture in the pores of the
wood eyaporates, there's bound to be q
shrinkage and something's got to give.
.sWhat is the cause of the scarcity Of
seasoned lumberP"
''The great demand for lumber in the
East for building and manufacturing
purposes compels the Western lumber
men to ship their lumber before it Is
thoroughly seasoned. Half dozen
wears ago it was customary to take the
lumber from the saw and pile it in the
open air, where it would be left from
eighteen months to two years before II
was considered in sufficiently good con-
dition for shipping. Now six months
is held to be a good long time. The con-
sequence is that there is comparatively
very little dry lumber in the market"
s'How is lumber dried artificially"
There are half a dozen ways. Heat
is the great principle in them all.
There are drying kilns of all sizes and
almost all shapes. Some are heated by
steam-pipes, some by furnaces and some
by hot-air. In some vacuum is Great
ed, and in some compressed air is used.
The great thing, to my mind, in drying
lumber is to get good circulation OF
air about it. The moisture comes tc
the surface and is dried off. A lately.
invented drying apparatus consists oi
an arrangement by which very large
volume of air is thrown into the kilr
at one end and exhausted at the other
Every two minutes all the air in the kilr
is changed. A fan-blower entraps the
air and forces it through heating ap
paratus before it gets to the kiln. 1t l.
so arranged that the air may be heated
to any degree desired, and different
kinds of lumber are differently treated
This process dries green lumber In sew
en- or eight days"
s.How long would it take the same
lumber to dry in the open air?
"Anywhere from one to two years
Some people say they would not use
kiln-dried lumber, but they are IN thu
minority. Piano makers and cabinet
makers could not get along without
drying Hlns. -" n T. San.