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KILN. DRYING HANDBOOK 81 
of stickers to sag when they are unsupported for a considerable dis- 
tance. Both the lumber and the stickers should be arranged so that 
no board rests on unsupported stickers and no ends are unsupported. 
Less end checking develops when the stickers are at the extreme ends 
of the boards than when they are even a few inches back. Minor 
modifications of the method of piling here described also receive the 
name “ box piling.” 
EDGE PILING 
Under certain conditions vertical or edge piling is cheaper than 
flat piling. (Pl. 16.) Several automatic stacking and unstacking 
machines have been developed for this work. While they differ in 
operation, the resulting stacks are very much alike, except in the 
width and the thickness of the stickers. The layers of boards and 
Ficurs 13.—A very effective way of arranging the stickers when the number of rows 
desirable exceeds the number of supports available. ‘The use of a large number of 
rows of stickers is recommended wherever there is appreciable degrade from warp- 
ing or from planer splitting; to secure the greatest benefit from their use it is 
essential both that the individual rows be given as much support as possible and 
that the entire load be piled as nearly straight and flat as possible 
the stickers are vertical and, in contrast with flat piling, the boards 
in each layer join closely, without intervening spaces. As the lum- 
ber shrinks in drying there is a tendency for the stacks to become 
loose and to lean. To avoid this trouble several take-ups have been 
devised; they are intended to squeeze the load together sidewise 
as the boards shrink and thus keep it always tight. A serious ob- 
jection to most take-ups is that they increase the ‘weight of the bunk 
considerably; this is important where the bunks have to be moved 
by hand. 
CIRCULATION 
The principal direction of the circulation through the lumber, 
with edge stacking, must be either upward or downward. Most 
32006°—29——-6 
