Q. Is it possible for a dull sawblade to cause stress?

Q: I have started making furniture out of beetle-killed pine. The blue streaks add character indeed. Unfortunately, the suppliers pine is about 16 percent MC and I think I need to get the lumber down to 7 percent MC. The supplier cannot or will not do this for me. What can I do?

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Q: We are experiencing raised "pimples" after machining Sycamore. It occurs on 1 to 5 in 100 pieces. It is always on glued rails and on flat sawn grain. It is very random but appears to be associated where glue has dried. The problem also appears only on the sap not the heartwood. We also run sap gum and silver leaf soft maple into this product but have never seen these random raised pimples.

Q. Is oak lumber from stored logs as good as lumber from fresher logs? We think that there is a difference in processing as yields seem lower.

Q. We just received some lumber that has a color issue. We see that the core is normal in color, but the core of the wood is considerably whiter. This contrast in color, shell is darker than the core, is giving us fits and looks poor in the finished product.

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Q Can you suggest a species, or what to look for in a species of wood that will be used for outdoor furniture. The furniture will be protected from the rain.

Q: We cold pressed several hard maple panels, 4/4 thick, then ripped them into 5-inch wide strips, and then we laminated these four 5-inch pieces to produce a post approximate 4 x 5 inch cross section. Then we sent the posts to the finish dept. The post began to split at the glue joints, usually the end, after the finish material was put on them and they were exposed to the hot box. How can we determine if the post are going to split before we apply finish material and heat?

Q: We have some windows that are about five feet high that have been installed in an apartment building. After construction was finished this fall, the heat was turned on and within a week or two we noticed that the window frames were warping, lengthwise, with the middle of the window bowing outwards. In fact, now after a month, we see a few cases where the warp has caused the window to crack. It would seem that the dry outside in Minnesota at this time of year would not be that much different from the inside, which does not have humidity control. What is happening?