Craig, I refer to it as "lumber creep". I was offered a tree here and there and over the years before you know it I've got a real storage problem. It just happens, you know? But as Mike said, it's a good problem to have, but a problem none the less.
As I was moving some of the lumber, I came across several large, wide, thick planks in both Walnut and Cherry that I had fireplace mantles in mind for, but the one pictured is my master Walnut plank. I still remember cutting down the tree it came from and thinking all along I was going to get wonderful boards and a nice mantle plank out of it. I deliberately waited until late fall to cut that tree down so the air temperature would be low to minimize how quickly moisture would be lost out of the logs. The slower moisture is lost the less chance of checking and any checking that does occur is not as great. I also was very careful to get white glue painted on the ends of the logs as soon as they were cut to length to stop checking and it worked. Those logs went to the mill only a couple of days after I cut them and the smell of Walnut sawdust from milling all of them was so distinctive. I remember how exciting it was to see the grain pattern in each board as they were milled out of the logs. They had a rich, deep color that almost reminded you of Mahogany. When those logs were all milled and the lumber stacked prior to loading, the old mill operator looked them all over and seemed very pleased at his part in producing them. Great memories.
Thomas
Are they now installed somewhere and in use or only in a museum on display?
To add to that I have just heard tomorrow will be an extremely bad day fire wise and has been declared a day of Total Fire Ban so even if I stay home I can not work outside weld or grind.
the electrical resistance between the pins is measured and.... presto, a % of moisture figure is produced. Here we see the meter is adjusted to test from 6 to 20% with the 6 bulb registering, therefore that board measures 6% or less moisture content. When working wood for furniture I like a content of less than 10% with 6% -8% best for our climate. Storing lumber vertically is fine if the wood is completely dried down and standing fairly close to straight up and not leaning over. 
