Hello, I am James from Chicago. I need some suggestions. Being webmaster owner https://howisland.com of tech websites. I’m seeking books or information on using green lumber for framing. Without drying the lumber, I would like to fall a tree and use a portable mill to see it to standard dimensions and frames. Timber framing is not my thing. As barns and outbuildings are the first constructions, slight shrinking or checking is okay, but twisting is not. I’m grateful.
Replies
Lumber shrinks as it dries.
Your best bet is to make the first building an open wood drying one, and use it to stack the boards you cut and let them dry before building the other buildings.
If you build with green boards, they will shrink.
You can do so if you also use green boards for siding, and allow for them all to shrink.
Board and batten is useful, with nails at an angle, but these buildings will leak.
Hopefully by portable mill you mean a bandmill of some sort not a chainsaw mill. Green lumber has many disadvantages to include instability and the weight of it. If you can stack and sticker it for even a month the weight will be much less and it will be some what more stable. A lot of the stability depends on how well you air dry it, as in both time and technique. In it's simplest form all you need do is stack and sticker it either in airy shade or with a piece of metal roofing over the stack. Air flow is critical but too much sun isn't good either. As for the economics it all depends but the cost of a band mill and it's operational costs and labor are no small thing. If you want to do it for fun that's different.