KILN DRYING OF SAWN BOARDS OF YOUNG EUCALYPTUS-GLOBULUS LABILL AND EUCALYPTUS-CAMALDULENSIS DEHNH GROWN ON THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS

Two drying schedules, a higher-and a lower temperature drying schedule , were tried on sawn boards from young Eucalyptus globulus and Euclypt us camaldulensis grown in Ethiopia. The aim of the study was to invest igate the effect of the two schedules on seasoning degradation and to develop recommendations concerning drying schedules for the examined t imbers. Both seasoning schedules gave satisfactory degradation results for 32 mm thick juvenile E. globulus and E camaldulensis boards, even though the degradation obtained using the low temperature drying in m ost cases was slightly lower than using the high temperature drying. T he boards of E. camaldulensis generally proved to have less degradatio n than the boards of E. globulus in this study. The conditioning of ki ln dried materials in the conditioning room has reduced the extent of seasoning degradation in most cases. Kiln conditioning has also reduce d deformation values to a certain extent, but often not checking value s. In evaluating the differences between the upper- and butt logs, it is found that there were no consistent differences between them, excep t that the 2m long E. camaldulensis boards from butt logs had more def ormation than those from upper logs. End sealing with silicon paste ga ve generally better results than unsealed boards with both drying sche dules.