Kiln vs. Air dried playability

Double-Dave

Double-Dave

Developing cue-addict
Silver Member
Someone who's opinion I respect told me today he felt that air dried birdseye maple forearms play better then kiln dried.

It surprised me so I would to know more opinions on this.

Gr. Dave
 
Double-Dave said:
Someone who's opinion I respect told me today he felt that air dried birdseye maple forearms play better then kiln dried.

It surprised me so I would to know more opinions on this.

Gr. Dave
Click to expand...



I'm nobody, but the best shafts I have ever touched have been open air dried for a long time. They're just plain musical.
 
If it's dry............ then it's dry......... it's all the same................ no difference.............

Kiln and vacuum dried will be whiter............

Kim
 
I would prefer air dried but then I don't have 10 years to sit around and let it dry.
I would also like to find a source for air dried shaft wood.

DPK air dries all his shafts and I think South West does also.

There is a chemical change in the wood as it ages when air dried that does not happen in the Kiln or vacuum drying system.
 
Hi,

Concern shaft maple, I buy all of my planks for shafts and they are kiln dried.

After doweling I let them season a couple of years and then taper turn them and then let them season five years then take the to .910.

They then season there until I pick them for a cue.

Wood that is kiln dried and turned will still season and acclimate in your shop while they rest between cuts.

It does not matter if the maple is air dried or kiln dried, it will still be subject to seasoning over time in your site specific climate or environment.

I don't know about the Birdseye but I would think it would be the same concerning seasoning cuts.

JMO,

Rick
 
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There is a very real difference between wood that is dried with high heat, and wood that isn't. However, that difference isn't a factor in how the shaft plays, considering that the drying was done properly. Any type of drying can ruin the wood if done improperly. Considering that the wood is handled properly through every step of the process from tree to shaft, then the way it will play is almost entirely dependent upon the genetics of the wood. How hard, heavy, & dense it is determines its performance characteristics, not the method used to dry it.
 
qbilder said:
There is a very real difference between wood that is dried with high heat, and wood that isn't. However, that difference isn't a factor in how the shaft plays, considering that the drying was done properly. Any type of drying can ruin the wood if done improperly. Considering that the wood is handled properly through every step of the process from tree to shaft, then the way it will play is almost entirely dependent upon the genetics of the wood. How hard, heavy, & dense it is determines its performance characteristics, not the method used to dry it.
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Agree.
Crappy wood will not play good no matter what you do.
I have a bunch of air dried pieces . After I turned them round, I took out the miter saw and chopped them to coring dowel lengths and sold them for cheap.The router loved them as it didn't even change sound when taking heavy cuts . I ended with these air dried pieces in bunches . These dried for maybe 15 years. A lot of them are still here I use to tune up the taper machine when needed.
They definitely have different color from my regular ones .
And from talking to Asian clients, that lovely story of some people air drying their pieces hasn't convinced me one bit that they are any more stable.
 
i really dont think

in a blind test that anyone could feel the difference in a cue, as to if the shaft was dried naturally or in a kiln.
 
air dried

Bought a slab of air dried birdseye that had been cut in 1936. Had it in my shop for over a year. Cut it into forearm blanks. All but one of the 12 blanks warped and just wouldn't stay straight. The good one was pretty nice, but I've had kiln dried that were just as nice or better.
 
General rule for air drying North American hardwoods is 1 year per inch of thickness. Oak takes the longest due to its cellular structure, and maple is one of the fastest. Maple will completely equalize within 6-8 months, to the point where it will not dry any lower. Once dry and equalized to its environment, that's it. Put it next to kiln dried wood in a typical cue shop of 78* & 45%RH, and both will soon equalize to 8.3%mc. The whole notion of letting wood sit for years or decades it complete myth. It does nothing except appease a cue maker's superstitions and make a good story for the customer. There's no such thing as "seasoning" wood, unless you sprinkle it with salt & pepper. Once acclimated to its current environment, that's it.

Stability is determined by several factors. First factor begins with the tree itself and it's growing conditions. Next will be how the log was handled after cutting, before milling. If it sat a long time unprotected from the weather before milling then it may have acquired some internal stress. How it's milled plays a huge role. Quarter sawing immediately eliminates much of the tendency to acquire stress during drying. Plain sawing is begging for trouble and has little or no place in a cue shaft unless you are ok losing 50%+ to warp. It's in the nature of the wood to curl up as it dries, not unlike the way a dead leaf does. QS eliminates that tendency. Once it becomes a shaft there's no way to know how it was milled. The difference is that QS wood is much more stable. And last but not least, the drying process factors. So long as the wood is dried & stress relieved properly, there should be minimal drying induced stress. Key word is "properly".

Even after you do everything exactly right from tree to shaft, there are going to be warpers. Some wood is just junk. You ever notice that the shafts that get the fuzzy torn out grain on the spine as they're cut? Then you'll also notice those ones never stay straight. Same exact way at the mill. The wood that fuzzes up through the cut is also the wood that gives a lot of trouble with movement as it dries. Nothing and no amount of time will ever keep that wood straight. On the other hand, some trees are genetically superior and produce wood that is all but immune to stress. Cuts like wax and never moves. Point being, the quality of the wood determines which shafts will stay straight or warp, which will hit stiff and which will hit like a rubber band. It's up to the cue maker to recognize this and learn how to cull the junk right away. Yes that means trashing a painful percentage of the shafts you buy, but it will save you a lot of time and frustration trying to keep junk wood straight. Besides, the good wood hits better, anyway.
 
cutter

i use a lot of old house cues to get shafts. i got a real quick education when i recut an appx 50 year old house cue.

im think its 50 years old so i can take bigger passes and cut it a bit faster, WRONG it warped.

that damn wood has a mind of its own.
 
What I am getting so far is there is no broad consensus on this subject.

As said, I was suprised by the statement. This comes from a cuemaker who's average cue sells in the $ 2000
region and he has been building for many years.

He absolutely feels that the exact same piece of birdseye maple forearm wood will play better if
it is air dried vs. kiln dried. This came up when I asked him if he wanted to buy a batch of wood together with
me since the batch was a little large just for me.

He declined when I told him this (very, very nice) birdseye maple was Kiln dried and told me he happily
pays around 50% more for air dried wood....

gr. Dave
 
This subject is ridiculous. I just don't get it. This guy pays 50% more for air dried wood. We have some who think that if the tree grows on the 38th parallel it's better wood than on the 37th parallel. However, if the angle of the slope that the tree is resting upon is more than 48 degrees, then it should be on the 36th parallel. Ad nauseum!

I've personally probably cut well over 10,000 shafts and don't experience any of the issues that come up in some of the topics here on AZ. I seriously question some people. Many just don't know what the heck they're doing. There is no reason to cut a tree and dry it yourself. There is readily available, quality wood from many sources which produce superior wood than anyone cutting their own trees or drying it themselves. Yeah, yeah you want to stabilize your own woods and you still have wood that doesn't react correctly. Perhaps you're not doing it right in the first place! If you know what you're doing, wood is predictable.

Making cues is not rocket science. In fact, it's pretty brainless.

I can pull light shafts, dense shafts, high growth shafts, low growth shafts, low growth with high density, high growth with low density, low with low density and high with high density, dark shafts, light shafts and any combination you can drum up. I'll cut them, taper them and not lose one! Now, if I can do that, so can you so I don't understand why all the hoopla about how difficult this is when it's quite simple.

Bottom-line - if you're getting wood that is taking years to dry and it's still moving then either one of two things is occurring:
1) it's bad wood to begin with
2) you don't know what you're doing

Let me get back to drying my own wood. We now dry it in a microwave along with the popcorn for all the stuff we find amusing.
 
Good point! And in answer to the OP -- you tell this joker cue maker that if he thinks air dried Birdseye forearms play differently than kiln dried forearms after the thing is cut, cored or not cored, after a handle is screwed on, after the butt sleeve is in place, after the wrap is installed, after the joint pin in installed (which one!), after the collar is installed, after the shafts are attached, after the ferrule in installed and then which tip -- if anyone can tell the difference (kiln dried or air dried) after all that, they're lying through their teeth! Either that or they did too many drugs when they were young or they are still doing too many drugs.
 
Wood

Cuemakers share in the complex human problem of coming up with something to make their work and them unique. Few actually are! Did I say Unique :) Hard to believe people that are trying to sell you something; such is the enhancement. Belief in God and beware of humans.


Mario
 
Here is just part of one article discussing this subject although not specifically pool cue forearms.
"As far as proponents of air drying or shed drying lumber they are growing by leaps and bounds. Many small shop wood workers are discovering the benefits of working with non-kiln dried woods. Many believe that you can actually feel the difference. Kiln drying speeds the process of drying the wood by subjecting the wood to heat and pressure so that it rapidly pulls the moisture out and weakens the cell walls – this can be especially problematic in lumber thicker than 8/4. The wood fibers are also weakened and they no longer have that glow of life from the cell. Air drying lumber preserves the intrinsic beauty of the wood where it actually glows. Whereas kiln dried material can have more of a, “stone-like” ambiance. The kiln drying process also diminishes the intensity of the color of the wood, and the subtle color changes of the grain – up to 20% in some species. For this reason many high end, one of a kind, furniture makers only choose air or shed dried material. Air dried wood is less brittle, and because it is already at equilibrium, it isn’t going to take on more moisture and twist on you later which can be true of kiln dried material as it returns to equilibrium. Turners and benders frequently want air dried material as well."
https://farwestforest.com/what-is-better-air-or-shed-drying-or-kiln-drying/

Kilns are designed to save time, therefore money, not much else, unless you have a species with high resin content and need to set the resin. This can still be done after the wood has air dried for a period of time.
 
I'd be leery of reading an air dried article from a salvage wood seller. As cue makers, we don't work with 8/4 or need to. Most wood we use is 4/4 and exotics are 6/4. We're not making furniture where there are large surface areas for visual beauty nor are we supporting a second floor or sitting on it.

Properly dried wood using a kiln where the kiln operator is responsible produces great wood. It's when the kiln operator is in a rush where he needs to turn product fast to buy dinner is where the problem resides in improperly dried wood. Unfortunately, many cue makers utilize these wood sellers because they're cheap or provide visually acceptable products.

Bottom-line: kiln dried, air dried or slow roasted over an open fire - no one is going to be able to prove that a BE forearm that is air dried plays better than a kiln dried BE forearm as the OP related to us especially after the cue is constructed with all its components. It's the sum of all the parts that makes the cue play a certain way.

And then equilibrium is brought into the discussion. Equilibrium where? In the Amazon jungle, in Vegas, in Key West, in Canada? The equilibrium will be different in each of those places and fail when brought to adjacent areas. No so with proper kiln drying as the wood is dried to specific factors and equalized all the same. For building cues, I'll take kiln dried every time!

P.S. air dried wood works but it is not necessary nor any better.
 
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Double-Dave said:
What I am getting so far is there is no broad consensus on this subject.

As said, I was suprised by the statement. This comes from a cuemaker who's average cue sells in the $ 2000
region and he has been building for many years.

He absolutely feels that the exact same piece of birdseye maple forearm wood will play better if
it is air dried vs. kiln dried. This came up when I asked him if he wanted to buy a batch of wood together with
me since the batch was a little large just for me.

He declined when I told him this (very, very nice) birdseye maple was Kiln dried and told me he happily
pays around 50% more for air dried wood....

gr. Dave
Click to expand...

His BEM's aren't better than the pieces we used to get from BF earlier this century.
They were a lot cheaper then too.
I remember getting the egg shaped pieces ( they run them thru router) we used to get from them back then were incredibly figured and really tight grain and heavy.
My mentor who was a good friend of a local hall of fame maker called him and he ordered a ton of them. Price went way up after that.
There are still a ton of great kilned BEM's around.
I won't bother with air dried ones.
 
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