Moisture Meter - Gunstock Blanks?

13 August 2004, 19:46

Gringo Cazador

Who's got the skinny on moisture meters for mositure content in wood. I found a cheap one for 29 bucks online, thought it might be cool to have one, that way when a buy a blank and it shows up with sap dripping out of it I can measure the mositure content and determine if its wet

.

I'm sure weighing one would be most accurate, but I live in a humid climate and thought it would be interesting toy to play with if accurate.

Anybody got one.

14 August 2004, 01:03

jeffeosso

Billy,
harbour freight has them for 10 bucks, i think

i know somewhere where between JACK and sTick on them...

Chic says they only measure the surface...

I think I would kick someone's ass that jabbed the probes on that into the SIDE of a blank, rather than an end

jeffe

14 August 2004, 02:43

Gringo Cazador

Jeffe

So what your really saying is it would not be smart to quit your day job and start and outsourceing company that measures moisture content of 50 dollar Blanks,

, with a 10 dollar meter.

14 August 2004, 04:08

Brent

Quote:

Billy,
I think I would kick someone's ass that jabbed the probes on that into the SIDE of a blank, rather than an end

jeffe

Measures at the ends will likely be quite a bit different. Once the pattern is sketched out, it would be easy to locate the probes towards the middle of the blank where wood will be removed enough that this does not matter - in the wrist would be one likely place.

Brent

14 August 2004, 17:08

B Stephenson

G C

The probe type moisture meters are generally pretty unreliable. They are used in the lumber industry only as a quick check to see where you are in the process of drying lumber. If you check a piece in different places, you will usually find VERY different readings. I guess that could tell you how far from being really dry the piece is. Having the piece stabilized AND equalized is the key to being able to machine or carve it into the finished product without any movement (or at least very little).

To be used anywhere near accurately, the probes MUST be driven into the center of the thickness of the piece; therefore care must be taken in where you use them.

True moisture content determination of hardwood lumber must be done by weighing before and after oven heating.

For a stock blank, I think that the best method of determining its suitability is tracking the weight of the blank.

IMHO, Bob