Yet another trailer decking question...

[2manyrocks]

The metal on your trailer looks in amazingly good condition. White oak will be awesome.

 

[WinterDeere]

The metal on your trailer looks in amazingly good condition. White oak will be awesome.

Thanks. It's starting to rust and bubble in a few spots, and I'm debating on how to deal with that. Any place I have ever repaired via rattle can seems to not hold up, but I really hate breaking out the HVLP gear for spot repairs. Maybe I just need to do more and thicker coats when I rattle can it.

I'm honestly debating between doing a bunch of spot repairs with the needle scaler, versus just hauling the entire trailer to our local sandblast/repaint place. My primary apprehension, other than sinking more money into a trailer than it's worth, is that I've heard the blasting sand can get into and ruin the running gear. I really don't feel like pulling hubs to clean out and re-pack bearings, or dropping springs to clean the shackle bolts and bushings.

Oh, and confirmed when scheduling inspection this morning, this trailer is a 2016 model. Deck has been failing for more than a year, so it really only lasted 8 years. Thats pretty bad for pressure treated, obviously the older CCA stuff was better (and less corrosive) than this ACQ crap we have been forced to buy the last 20 years.

I already decided that the new white oak will get hosed down liberally with Bora Care as I stack it with stickers to dry. Unfortunately, I seem to have tossed my bin full of hundreds (thousands?) of wood stickers, so I'll be spending some time today making new ones.

(...and before anyone asks: wood "stickers" are small sticks that go between planks when drying, not adhesive labels.)

 

[2manyrocks]

I used a needle scaler on mine earlier this year. Some rattle can paint is touted as one coat coverage. Why not if it only needs touching up in a few spots?

 

[WinterDeere]

Boards are home, treated, stickered, and in the “kiln”!



I’ll have to lift the plastic at the ends after the next rain passes, to seal the board ends with paint or wax. Today was all a rush to get them treated and covered before tonight’s rain.

There’s some real nice figuring on some of the boards, as quarter-sawn oak tends to have, nice striping and ray flakes. Almost a shame it’s a trailer floor.

 

[BackRoad]

Just asking...

Is there any airflow in and out of the "kiln".

 

[WinterDeere]

Just asking...

Is there any airflow in and out of the "kiln".

Yes, there's a gap down each long side, but I'm not convinced that's enough. I plan to add some stringers to the long top corners, attaching them to each end of the cross members supporting the pipe, just to gap the plastic off the oak a bit better. But if you have any advice on how to optimize ventillation, I'm all ears!

I know there's a sweet spot, adding enough ventillation to let trapped moisture out, without allowing much heat to escape. As it is now, it's vented from below, and any evaporating moisture should condense on the plastic and drain down to the edges at night. But I have no real experience with this, I'm just copying what I've seen others do.

 

[JJT]

There's no need to kiln dry oak for a trailer deck. I'd let it air dry for a week or two and then bolt it down. If you were making furniture, sure go the kiln dry route.

 

[WinterDeere]

There's no need to kiln dry oak for a trailer deck. I'd let it air dry for a week or two and then bolt it down. If you were making furniture, sure go the kiln dry route.

I move about 60,000 pounds of oak per year, I know the wood better than most. White oak in particular takes about 3 years just to reach 18% moisture content, and our equillibrium moisture content (EMC) for white oak in this climate is around 15%. Did I mention I use a lot of white oak?

Fresh cut white oak has very high moisture (45% to 200%), and my goal is to knock it down at least a little closer to the 15% EMC for our area before installing, to avoid having it just tear the deck fasteners out as it dries from this fresh-cut state. The only way to do that in a matter of weeks, rather than a matter of years, is to kiln it.

 

[2manyrocks]

I don't know if it would make a difference, but you could remove the old trailer deck and use the trailer frame as a drying rack to get the oak further off the ground and away from ground moisture.

My experience with sawmill red oak used as siding is the width shrinks a surprising amount after it dries out. I haven't worked with white oak, but if white oak shrinks like that, I'd want it as dry as I could get it.

 

[WinterDeere]

I don't know if it would make a difference, but you could remove the old trailer deck and use the trailer frame as a drying rack to get the oak further off the ground and away from ground moisture.

My experience with sawmill red oak used as siding is the width shrinks a surprising amount after it dries out. I haven't worked with white oak, but if white oak shrinks like that, I'd want it as dry as I could get it.

Flat sawn white oak 8" planks will usually shrink about 1/2" across their width between milling and EMC, depending on initial moisture, exact sawing orientation, etc.

 

[WinterDeere]

I just ran some quick numbers, in case anyone cares:

White oak runs about 47 lb/ft3 at 20% MC. MC is ratio of H20 mass to dry weight mass, so that 47 lb/ft3 works out to roughly 7.8 lb. of water + 39 lb of wood.

But when it arrives at the sawmill, it's usually 60 - 65 lb/ft3, meaning roughly 24 lb. of water for each cubic foot. That would put it's MC% a little over 60%.

When first felled, the MC% can be over 100%, particularly certain times of year. This just means that by weight, you're hauling more water than wood mass.

 

[WinterDeere]

As I finish up the battery box mod's and painting, I'm looking at my tailgate, the expanded metal of which is really caving in quite badly. I'd like to improve it, with four things in mind:

1. Not make it any heavier.
2. Improve or at least not make worse the ability to skid logs up the ramp with my winch. Yeah, I should probably build a swing arm type log lift onto the trailer, but dragging them up the ramp has always worked well enough.
3. Give better support to the expanded metal, as it's caving in quite badly under my tractor's front tires. Made worse by the fact that I'm often hooking onto and lifting 15 foot logs out while front tires are on the ramp.
4. Possibly split ramp to reduce how high it sticks up, as I'd love to put a short roof over this trailer in storage.

I think item 4 is probably off the table. I can't imagine any split ramp handling the weight of my 3033r with max load on the FEL. Also, sometimes I transport the tractor with a crap-ton of rear ballast, when going to logging jobs, and I don't even want to think about a possible ramp failure while driving up onto the trailer.

That leaves us three criteria, with item 2 being the only real challenge. How can I make it easier to skid logs up that ramp, without hurting tire traction? I'd be great to just weld some vertical stringers onto the ramp deck, as guide log ends right into the bed, but it'd be awful slippery for snowy tractor tires trying to climb the tailgate.

Any ideas?

 

[LouNY]

Have you considered two fold up ramps, that way they can stronger and heavy duty split folding but still be manageable.

 

[WinterDeere]

Have you considered two fold up ramps, that way they can stronger and heavy duty split folding but still be manageable.

I've seen them, but can't imagine how I'd skid logs up into the trailer without a continous ramp.

 

[LouNY]

 

[WinterDeere]

Oooh! Those are nice!

Thanks, Lou! Will dig in on that, soon!

 

[WinterDeere]

Oh, one thing I notice is the rib spacing is at least as wide as that on my current tailgate, meaning I'll probably collapse the expanded metal... which might be fine.

When you first mentioned split ramps, I thought you were talking about these: