Question
I know and understand that a commercial mill and drying operation would want to create high stacks to keep the lumber flat while drying, and hopefully it will still be flat after milling before the customer buys it.
My question is this; if a given board down in the stack had been dried without restraint and had a tendency to cup or twist, does it retain that memory after drying after the restraint is removed, thus taking its long term memory and cupping and or twisting later?
If the answer is yes as I suspect, would someone like myself who is sawing for themselves as the end user, be better off allowing the wood to take whatever shape it will before milling individual parts? Assuming the board reached EMC both ways restrained or unrestrained.
I sawed some cherry this week that I think is going to behave badly, and I would rather know that the stress was gone before I made expensive parts out of it rather than have an old memory creep in on a finished product.
I have a place in a shed where I can stand on end, and lean the boards against their edges rather than the face. It is all 12/4 thick with a strong block mottled figure.
Forum Responses
(Sawing and Drying Forum)
From contributor W:
As long as the wood is dry when you build it should not move any more then normal and cherry is pretty stable to begin with.