Hardwood initiative - Part 5: Development of new processes and technologies in the hardwood industry : Best practices to avoid hardwood checking. Part II. Prevention of checking by proper storage methods
Wood checking in many wood species causes considerable economic loss in hardwood industry. They can occur on logs, green timber, kiln- or air-dried lumber and final furniture or flooring components during manufacturing, drying processing, storage and end-use. Wood checking is difficult to be completely eliminated, but can be controlled to an acceptable level by a proper protective measure. This report provides scientific data on the effectiveness of the most common and up-to-date protective products and methods to prevent checking in logs, green lumber and components of sugar maple and yellow birch during storage in Quebec.
In the experiment, five commercial protective products were tested on logs and green lumber and three methods were evaluated on furniture components after storage for 8 weeks. The results showed that these protective measures were necessary and effective, more or less, to prevent checking in these stored wood products. For protecting stored logs and green lumber from end checking, the most effective treatment was those logs or lumber end-painted with a white coating product. For protecting stored components from checking, the most effective measure was either end sealed with a paper or pile wrapped with a plastic sheet. No checking was detected on any component of sugar maple and yellow birch protected with either of these two methods after exposure to the extreme environmental conditions for 8 weeks.