A Basic Moisture Meter

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xy mosian

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The other day I picked up some Oak, european, to start on a couple of spindle stool tops. My first thoughts were that it was heavier than I expected. This made me suspect that it may not be dry enough. It had been air drying for a number of years in a barn in France.

Now I don’t have a moisture meter, never having felt the need, but always looking for a chance to put off until tommorrow.... Anyway I came across this meter on Woodgears.

Luckily I do have a couple of multimeters and set about making one of the above. I am not sure about the accuracy but the results were not suprising.
Barn dried european Oak 12%
Kiln dried Ash 10%
Air dried Oak housebound for a couple of years 8%

Good enough for me, I can put of the stools for a while.

The first snag I had was, working from a table of discrete values, not being able to find an exact match to my timber. I had to make a guess at the nearest species, that and being discrete values working to the nearest value. Still I have a method of checking that drying is progressing in the right direction.

https://woodgears.ca/lumber/moisture_meter.html

Have fun, xy
 
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