A few tips that might be useful- 1. Use a wax based paint to seal the ends of your boards. This prevents splitting and forces more uniform drying. Don’t skimp. 2. Use dry, uniform thickness stickers with thickness in the 1/2”-5/8” range. Place them every 1’ and be sure the stickers align from top to bottom. Not sort of align, but perfectly align. It’s just simple engineering to apply uniform force. 3. Seriously consider using some form of breathable membrane to cover the pack… this will prevent case hardening and slow the drying down to a safe rate (West Coast humidity is so low it can damage lumber (surface checking and warping). 4. Find something very heavy and place it atop the pack or use heavy binding straps every 2’ or so. Check and Retighten every few days. 5. Be sure to store the pack away from wind and sun. I’ve dried lumber for many decades, various domestic and foreign species from 4/4 to 24/4. This is the correct path to keep it from pulling itself apart. Elm is the same way. Good luck.

I used Madrone for paneling in a bathroom. It had been milled to 1/2" and ranged from 4" to 12" wide. It was stacked and stickered and set for about 12 years. I had to drill for every finish nail. it was almost impossible to drive a nail without bending. Was well worth it in end. the colors for the most part were deep dark red.

In my younger days, I cut a LOT of madrone for firewood. You had a window of only a few days to split it (by hand) or you would never get it split. I eventually learned to only cut the skinny trees that would fit in the stove without splitting.

Boatbuilder, furnituremaker here. Dunno about Madrone, but the bowed root end can be very useful in live edge boards. Fits against the stem in a boat, or it can be a chair leg or whatever in furniture. A branch crotch makes a nice bowl blank.

I’ve painted the ends - several coats - and then dried it very slowly in log form for a few years before milling. Even then it moves some, but it does settle down - enough that I’ve made door frames of it. Gorgeous wood, alright.

I grew up in the Seattle area and there was a big die-off of Madrone trees in the 1970's. We had a big tree die in our yard. That Madrone makes beautiful lumber. Love your videos!

Good luck Mr. Wilson! Can’t wait to see your cured madrone boards! Hopefully the end of this story doesn’t have a surprise twist.😂

I had several good-sized madrones blow down in a storm some years ago when I lived in the Santa Cruz mountains. Milled a bunch of 3-4' long slabs 14-20" wide. Did a few 3/4 and up to 12/4. Even weughted and stickered the stuff moved. I sealed the ends with watered down wood glue. I hope to get some usable material, but its sitting in my garage. A year later I milled some similar sized CA laurel. I stickered it and wrapped each stack with ratchet straps. Tightened them down every couple of weeks as they dried and shrank. Better results. If it werw me I'd seal the ends pronto and ratchet strap around the trailer frame to keep the stuff from moving.

I dont know about lumber but I am a woodturner and I know how to process it for turning blanks. Many years ago, it was discovered that if you boil the wood for a couple of hours, it will dry no problem. If you search, you can find an article on it. Granted boiling lumber would be a neat trick. It turns beautifully though.

In Canada, they call the Madrone tree “ Arbutis “. I like that name better because it seems to contain the word beauty. I live in New Hampshire on the east coast and have an affinity for hardwood. To me the Arbutis is gorgeous wood. Your video is the first I’ve seen it milled and it did not disappoint. It’s truly glorious. Well done, my friend. I can’t wait to see what you do with it when it’s dried. I’ll be watching.

I've cut and dried shorter lengths of Madrone. Like people say, it tends to warp and year itself apart. However, if you can slow that drying speed down and strap it it can be done. Treating it with polyethylene glycol is a great solution for turning pieces. One last way I had success was to resaw it after it warps and dries and gluing it to some more stable subsurface like plywood. The rich pinks tend to turn to dull colors but it takes a beautiful shine. Surprisingly brittle, but hard and dense. Yes, I love it as firewood too.

That is actually a beautiful piece of wood,thanks and keep em coming . Give that helicopter a one finger salute.

I went to Cal Poly Humboldt, i was botany/ecology major though I spent some time with the folks in the forestry department. Seeing you talk about trees and land management hits a spot of nostalgia for me. Madrones are one of my favorite trees besides Redwoods and Coast Live Oak. Thank you for making these videos and making your knowledge so accessible, and entertaining too. Stay safe out there and keep up all the fantastic work you doing for the land, more people like you should be in charge of tending the trees.

There is a wet curing process that is used when making guitar bodies that are beautiful.

It's a pleasure watching a pro at work! What an incredible property you have. Just beauty. God bless my friend ❤️🙏🏼

That looks like some nice looking lumber. I like the figure in it. Yep got to have the water test. There’s you a new challenge. Thanks for sharing

That's beautiful wood, never heard of it before.

You are a lucky man with many blessings.

That’s some of the prettiest wood I’ve seen on a portable mill!!!

I've seen a lot of it used for firewood in Washington... Great heating timber.

Being an East Coaster, I've never even heard of that wood till I started watching you!!!

I have milled madrone, and dried it, and also worked with it as a professional carpenter. Everything you said is pretty much true. If you are going to dry it, band it tight ( with stickers) and weight it, and do it under a roof. It will still probably check and twist. If you air dry it it is really susceptible to insects, so kiln drying is recommended. I am telling you this from experience. It does make really beautiful lumber if you get some that dries flat. It does not take stain well, so it should be finished clear. Your best bet would be to mill up a big log...like about 24" diam or better...the color would be a lot darker. Good luck with that. I will probably never bother with it again...except for firewood.

The "refrigerator tree"! Nice, we only use it as firewood - santa cruz mtns

I milled a stump one time I got the slabs in the garage for a coffee table or something in the future. The only thing I can say is maybe stabilizing with pentacryl or some other process.

WOW!!! That is some stunning lumber may have to try and get some to wood work with. Thank you so much would never thought about using any. Oh and here in the northwest corner of Washington state folks have a fit if you use it for fire wood unless it was blown down by mother nature nearly sacrilege to cut one down.

you are interesting to listen to thanks

Cool Beans!!

Cool idea!

Pretty wood!

Madrone is a great wood to work, similar working properties to hard maple and European beech but much easier on the tools. Too bad lumber runs almost as much as Myrtle, it can make some subtly beautiful pieces but hard to justify the cost. I hear it's a beast to dry so definitely seal the ends and consider sealing the edges, dry it low and slow just like smoking a brisket.

I like Madrone so much that I spent a day in Roseburg at the OSU Extension workshop on Madrone. I’ve got some naturally growing on my land in Cottage Grove and collected berries to plants more and line the sides of my driveway with. I’m very excited to see how your lumber project turns out! I’m originally from the Midwest and Madrone has got to be my favorite tree.

Madrone is my favorite bowl turning wood. It cuts like butter, wet or dry. I have found that I get far less cracking if the spring sap is running, which is around the end of February up here in Eugene. Not sure where you are located. Even early summer wood seems to crack a lot more. Weight wise, it is very heavy when harvested because it holds more water than just about any other wood other than sycamore. I like it for bowls because it warps insanely, no rhyme or reason to how it warps. For firewood, it does burn well, but I would say that you get a lot more BTUs from white oak. The biggest difference is that white oak takes 2 summers to dry enough for proper burning, but madrone will dry in one summer. As for hardness, one book said it has 'low crushing strength', so in my book, not very hard. For sure, myrtle/bay laurel is harder. I have known 2 people who would dry the lumber. One used a solar kiln, and the other used a vacuum kiln. The guy with the solar kiln would air dry it for a year strapped down to a frame, and I would guess you putting a lot of weight on it would be pretty much the same thing. The solar kiln heats up in the day, and cools off at night which allows the wood to 'relax' at night, which helps reduce internal stressing. The guy with the vacuum kiln was figuring it out, but he went out of business, and went back to his home shop where he still does musical grade woods. Some of his wood dried fine, some of it dried with a lot of internal checking in it. I did have a friend who gave me a burl that had been dried in his shop for 20 years. Outside looked fine, but inside was shattered. Funny stuff. You have to be almost as quirky as the tree itself to be able to work it. I figure that is why we get along so well...... There is a fair amount of it that goes into flooring since you can cut the pieces smaller. Any east coast lumber drier would attempt madrone once, and then say, never again. This wood does not do well in standard kilns. Some one once referred to that as "Kill Dried" wood. I agree. The solar kiln and vacuum kiln dried woods I have cut up act like air dried woods. No internal stressing so you can cut for a bookmatch and the wood does not cup, warp. or twist as you cut it. Put it on a table saw, and you get shavings where standard kiln dried wood gives you powder/dust.

Learned something. Never heard of madrone, we don't see it in the UK. If we hear 'madrone' over here, it's a Scots geezer talking about his flying video thingy.

That is some beautiful wood, alright. I sure do hope it dries straight.

Great video, and such a pretty madrone tree!

Wilson, thanks for making lumber from the Madrone tree so we could see the nicely colored boards. I sure hope the lumber dries flat without warping or cracking. It will be nice to see what you use the lumber for when it dries. Blessings to you.

That's some nice looking lumber

Cool to see a guy like you play on his WESTCOAST woodlot. Here in Quēbec, Canada (EASTCOAST) we have almost just hardwoods. On my 4 acres of old growth woodlot there's is about 9 hardwood species. Confifurus is most white pine, hemlock, spruce and tamarak. Just wanted to say hi and I enjoy this kind of content.... cause you know. When you live on your woodlot you don't explore that much other woodlot the other side of the continent. I posted a 3 minutes walk a while ago to show poeple around the american hood what our forest look like in this zone 5... ⚜️✌🏼

Real good looking boards 👌🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼

Almost as strange as burning evergreens for firewood ! Beautiful stuff, lookin' forward to seeing how it dries.

Very enjoyable channel.

"Catching the can" as opposed to "kicking the can" -- well done and long may it be so. Somebody is always not doing something... I think we hired the same guy here. Almost no Madrone in North Linn County -- lots in South Linn around Brownsville/Coburg Hills. Shore is purty wood when cut. Another likeroo and cheers from your neighbor to the North.

Now this should be interesting. I know all the Madron i have split over the years was small and twisted. These boards look awesome. 😉👍

Local mills make it into flooring. As for me, Ive cut billets, painted the ends, then wait to dry. 2 years later: Termites usually ruin what doesnt warp and check making it only good for firewood. The reason its good for firewood is it splits easy. Not nearly as dense as oak. My favorite local wood is canyon oak.

Having made a bias-cut live edge coffee table out of madrone please anchor seal the ends, actually. seal it about 2-4 inches in from the ends also. My madrone tried to end check like crazy and the extra sealing helped a lot. The crotch wood may be a beautiful yellow where it supported the branch. Thank you for this I look forward to seeing how the drying turns out. If it dries straightish it would fetch a premium at a hardwood lumber yard.

I made a bar top out of a madrone log, air dried in a barn for a year.... that thing twisted up something fierce.. but madrone is still my favorite wood

Why hello from Columbia, ky! I just wanted to say that your madone tree has a similar color to our sycamore tree. Well have a safe and happy day.

I’m the exact guy you mentioned, no nothing about drying madrone. Had great luck with sugar pine and cedar. Got it into a climate controlled garage pretty much immediately and just stickered it. Yep, twisted up like a petzl! Don’t think a had a flat 12” section. Shame to because I’d hoped it would have made a great workbench top. Hopefully you have considerably better luck! 👍🏼👍🏼

Madrona becomes VERY brittle when it dries and why it is not used(much). It also twists massively when it dries due to facti t does not grow straight and LOTS of internal stresses, so will require LOTS of weight/steam to keep it straight and relieve that twisted stress. But, it is also harder as well. A table top or say, moulding on a window it would do well, but you would not want it as baseboard trim taking impacts, doors, chairs.

East coast here, never heard of it 😂. Pretty wood though.

Up and out here in eastern Ontario, beech is our generally consensus best firewood. Very little in the way of traditional looking bark on these either.

Cool video Wilson 🪵

As an East Coast guy who does firewood and milling, I appreciate your humour. But you do have experience fixing softwood boards that twisted into a pretzel. The process shouldn't be much different for hardwoods. LOL

I've cut Madrone and it dried with warped boards but i cut them 12' long to long. I think 6' or 8' would be better and putting a lot of weight on them just might do it. I didn't have any dead wood in it, the the color in the stuff I cut was white with pinkish colors beautiful hard wood. to use it in projects I had to cut it in smaller size pieces to get away from warp. It is very hard WOOD!!

Makes me wonder what it smells like.... 🌳

Did your property have access roads on it when you bought it? Did you add any? What was your process in determining where they should go? How much do you budget for maintenance each year?

Seems similar to the Euc I have down here.

I do not know how sycamore is dried but try getting the protocol for drying sycamore or red elm.

I couldn’t believe the amount of water that came out of the first and second cut as a sawblade broke through the end. You could actually see the water being pushed out ahead of the blade.

Just put some weight on the ends and keep it out of direct sun. It will dry without warping. East coast conifers are bad to warp and hardwoods not so much. Opposite problem you have. Lol you just said weigh it down. That's right. Go for it.

Nice tractor. What brand is it ?

Wondering how to prevent twist/warp in Madrona

Does the can on the exhaust help with starting or is it a joke?

Ya don’t know why they don’t Harvest the hard wood hear on the west coast I have seen the oak trees after the fier s go though they chip the oak and arbutus and lot these guy get there hand on and take it home for firewood and sell it on the side

Am I missing it, or do you never wear hearing protection?

twisting in your future im afraid.

Who ever they are , they say " nothing ventured . nothing gained " or so I have heard .

Not much de-barking to do on those trees.

Stop wasting the ends of your trees. This is because if you dry them out, cut them in half (cut side to cut side) they make fantastic bowl blanks for woodturners. It hasn't cost you anything and if during drying they split or spalt the resin workers want these. Sorry you probably do this anyway, but for lumber processors who manage their own land it can be an extra revenue source.

Our madrones are being killed by the thousands from silk worm infestation, we used to have the biggest madrones in the world they are all gone now