: I have a chance to buy some very nice reclaimed old growth Western Red cedar
: for $4.00 BF ($3.00 US) but it is quite green.

Something sounds fishy here.

Just what or where, EXACTLY did this get reclaimed from?

: I told the man I couldn't
: wait a year for it to dry so he told me he could have it kiln dried.

Newly felled tress, when cut into planks, will take about this long to dry. But wood which is "reclaimed" is not going ot be the same as wood from newly felled trees. So what is the actual source?

A lot of reclaimed wood comes from old buildings. The timbers and siding used on old barns have a very rustic, aged look. Years ago some people who made picture frames paid large premiums to buy such wood. They would bid on existing barns and remove the wood. This has not only pushed up the price, but in some areas it drove preservationists crazy as the old buildings in their areas were snapped up at top dollar, dismantled and hauled away.

In some large industrial or commerial areas you'll find old warehouses and factories being disassembled. The wood timbers which supported the floors and framework of such buildings are huge. Wood recyclers will resaw them into thinner boards.

These types of recycled or reclaimed boards are going to be VERY dry already, ans you should be able to use them immediately.

There is another type of reclaimed wood, though, which comes to mind, and that is wood which was recovered from the bottoms of rivers and lakes. There are a lot of logs on the bottom of the Great Lakes which ended up there when the ships carrying them sank in bad weather. In the past, when trees were cut in the winter and floated downstream to sawmills in the turbulent spring floods, a lot of logs became waterlogged on the way and sank to the bottom of riverbeds.

If your supplier has this type of reclaimed wood then you are dealing with a few more variables than usual. That is not necessarily good or bad, but it WILL be variable.

Modern testing methods and scholarly work in forestry science has given woodworkers a lot of information on the properties of trees and the wood derived from them. But that is for modern forests of second growth, or new growth wood.

Since you have little knowledge of how well the log was preserved under the water, or water and mud, you can't predict in advance how well it will work for you. Actually, you do have one fact to work with. These trees were either denser or more porous than average, which is why they sank while the average log floated on to the mill.

The properties of such waterlogged logs are not the same as for freshly cut timber. While the wood is certainly moist, it is not exactly "green" anymore. The tree's cells might still have hardened somewhat. Imagine a piece of wood which had been air dried, and then was used as a piling for a pier. You will be getting something similar, but not quite the same.

It is unlikely that the wood you will pick up at the lumberyard is going to be dripping wet. They have probably held it for a while, so it has started to dry. It will continue to lose water until the moisture content stabilizes - which has something to do with the relative humidity of the onditions where it is stored.

If you are just looking at this wood for a few boats you probably won't be buying enough lumber to make it worthwhile to air dry it in a solar dryer.

Just take the boards inside your house (where conditions are probably drier than outside) or work area, and store them under some weights so they don't warp as they dry.

Thin wood dries faster than thicker stock, so try to rip the stuff into strips and then let those strips dry for a few weeks while you make your frames and strongback. Stack the boards or ripped strips with "stickers" as suggested, and put something heavy on top to hold the strips so they don't warp as they dry.

Cutting wet wood can produce a rough surface. Cut your strips a little thicker than you'll need. It may shrink a bit as it dries. After the strips lose some more moisture content you should be able to runn them through a saw, or a sander or planer to bring them down to the size you'll need.

Why not buy a two or three short boards and try them. If they work, then go back in a few weeks and get as many as you need.

It won't be a very expensive experiment.

Hope this helps

PGJ