Sawing your own Lumber

[Wood_Slice]

I have a 17" Grizzly band saw and wanted to saw some logs into useable lumber. I can probably safely saw a 16" diameter x 3-4 feet length of a log with a little jig-rigging on my band saw for support and squaring. My actual question is lets say I would like the final dried rough dimension of the wood to be 4/4 or 6/4 or 8/4 and so on----> How much extra thickness do I need to add to counteract the drying shrinkage of the wood. Does it shrink? If yes, by how much? 1/16",1/8", 1/4" etc. Different wood species different shrinkage rates.

I sawed some 14" diameter x 2 foot logs already and the width was honestly just spit balling whatever looked OK to my eye while trying to cut out the heartwood.

 

[mino]

Your problem is not shrinkage but warping as every wood will warp a bit while drying. Even restrained one.

The warping reserve so you can plane/joint it later is way bigger compared to the shrinkage reserve you may need.

1/4 on each side for softwood is a safe bet, less if you have a way to restrain the wood well while drying or it is some quality hardwood which warps less