Air dried for outside project?

[The Bear]

I have been tasked to make a cover for the filter workings of the garden pond.

There are a lot of (green) oak posts in the garden. The boss therefore wants the filter cover to be oak as well.

What we have decided on is a metal skeleton frame, which is then clad with thin horizontal strips of oak (this will match a stone feature in the garden). The strips will be about 5cm high and about 12mm thick.

My question is, there seem little point buying anything that is kiln dried so am I right to assume air dried is the best way forward? (Will be buying rough sawn and machining it up myself)

Mark

 

[Chems]

Air dried and kiln dried have roughly the same outcome, dry wood. Infact by your way of thinking you might be the wrong way around as a lot of people swear by air dried over kiln dried.

Bottom line, it matters not what it starts of with in this case, its more how you protect it.

 

[The Bear]

Chems

You have a point about the protection which I've not given any though to. The rest of the green oak is unprotected and has been allowed to turn silver.

I think I might do the same with this, in which case there is probably no difference to which I use??

I am hoping the metal frame will stop twists and warpping to a large extent.

I have never bought air dried, is there much of a price difference?


Mark

 

[Anonymous]

remember the oak will turn a funny colour if it comes in contact with the steel.

 

[Chems]

I don't think there is much of a price difference between air or oak, I know of 2 places in Northamptonshire that do air and kiln and their prices are fairly similar.

If you are just going to let it go silver why not start with green oak to begin with? Cheaper, easier to work and you can let it do its thing over time. Of course you can't P/T green oak. It makes a big mess, but you can leave it a rough look straight off the bandsaw or just stick to hand tools.

 

[The Bear]

Thanks for the replies

I want to put it through the planer so green is ruled out.

As for the staining, I've had experience of that from the green oak in the garden when I left it stood on iron bandstands - oxalyic acid gets rid of the stains. My plan with this is to paint the metal frame, then use DPM between the wood and metal.

Cheers

Mark

 

[Woodwizard]

It's the grade you can save money on. I take it these strips are not so long, or wide, so you can pick up a sawn board that a joiner / furniture maker wouldn't touch with a barge pole - then cut out the good bits to use.

Those 'good bits' don't need to be so good - it's not like you're making cabinet doors for a centrally heated house. No warping and twisting to worry about from the sounds of it.

If you rebate the edges and overlap them (like shiplap) leaving a small expansion gap, you shouldn't have a problem.

Forget the expansion gap with dry timber outside - and you'll find out who wins when expanding oak and metal get into a conflict!

(it's the oak!)

 

[The Bear]

Woodwizard

Probably didn't explain myself in the first post properly, I'm not trying to produce a solid looking box. The finished look will be horizontal slats with about 8 to 10 mm gap between, so no worries with expansion gaps.

Mark