Manufacturing and Production

Timber Drying, Grading and Preservation

Timber moves with moisture for the whole of its life, so a board dried badly will warp, split or shrink in the building it was installed in, months after anybody could connect the fault to the kiln. This course covers drying it properly. Delegates work through wood structure, moisture content and the fibre saturation point below which shrinkage begins. Air drying and its limits are covered. Kiln drying follows in operational detail: schedules by species and thickness, dry and wet bulb control, air velocity and the stress relief conditioning that prevents casehardening. Drying defects are diagnosed: checks, collapse, honeycomb, warp and case hardening, each traced to a schedule fault. Moisture measurement is addressed, including meter correction and oven dry testing. Grading follows, both visual and machine, against structural and appearance rules. Preservation is covered through pressure treatment, retention and penetration requirements, and the hazard classes that determine which product is used where. The course closes on storage, on handling after drying and on customer complaints.