Recently I have been looking for info on surface checks in 6/4 and 8/4 white ash. I found two web site that had basically the same info listed but I could not find the source for this info. Basically what was said was that surface checks in 6/4 and 8/4 ash can be caused by trees from wet sites being dried to slowly. Can anyone here confirm this info? To me it seems that if there is excesive surface checks it would be from drying to fast, not to slowly. Or is there something special about drying ash? Thanks.
From contributor Ge
I think the info you have might be a typo, as I would agree that surface checks in 6/4 and 8/4 ash can be caused by trees from wet sites being dried to quickly. The idea of a wet site is that the trees have a bacterial infection that weakens the wood, so normal drying stresses exceed the strength of the wood. However, I have not seen bacterially infected ash...I have seen it in hemlock, elm, oak, cottonwood, and many others.
