NO MOSITURE METER

Re: NO MOSITURE METER

Scott Post

>They waited. Wood was air dried and they knew how long it took. There's an account in vol II of Ken Roberts' book explaining one planemaker's process for drying plane blanks. If I remember right they waited 4 years before using a piece of wood.

Cabinet makers would have known how long a board had to dry before use in their part of the country.

I use mostly air dried wood and I've never had a piece of 4/4 lumber that wasn't dry after a year from being cut. I do check my lumber in case the sawyer I use has a memory lapse about when he cut the wood. I'll also cut open and measure the middle of a sample from a load of anything thicker than 4/4. If you buy kiln dried lumber from a reputable lumberyard you shouldn't need a moisture meter.

Re: Tall Tale or Fact ????

Dale Stansbery

>An old timer recently recounted a method to me that he was told when he was young by an old German immigrant.

He claims it works. Supposedly, you take your project wood and tightly bundle it with stickers, then place it on end in a corner by a chimney. The claim is that you can actually see the moisture content decrease from the top down. When it reaches the bottom, wait another week and it's ready to go.

I think I'll continue using a meter.

simple test

Dennis

>Just cut out a test piece shaped like a tuning fork, you will know real quick by how much the forks move.

Dennis

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hygrometer

Sam simpson

>Hi Y'all,

Being and aged third generation furniture maker, I know a little about how it used to be done.

For starters, one of the reasons it wasn't such an issue was that when you work slower (planing by hand instead of machine) the wood equalizes while in process. This is best learned by greenstick chair making.

With a little practice you can actually feel the moisture in wood. You just need to know what level to feel for. If you hold a planed piece to your cheek, you can feel the temperature transfer, It's a sort of clammy feeling if it is too damp. (kinda the same way yer Mom tested if the clothes where dry out on the line)

My Grandfather used a terra-cotta pot shard. He had an old clean plant pot that was broken into pieces. The colour of the terra-cotta changes quite noticeably as the moisture content changes. He would have bits of it sitting around, in the house, in the wood shed, and in bags of shavings where he kept green wood blanks for carving.

One of the first objects I was shown how to make, was a simple hygrometer. It is done by gluing two thin strips of wood together, with the grain running in opposite directions. Obviously, the resulting strip will warp dramatically as it's moisture content changes. All you have to do is harness this warpage. Go to www.simpsonsfurniture.com/shrinkage.html to find out how.

Regards Sam Simpson.

easy reference test

Bill Tindall, E. TN

>The reference method for moisture determination in wood can be done with equipment often found in the home. Crank oven to about 200 degrees F. Weigh the test piece on a postal or kitchen scale. (I use my bread making kitchen scale) Put test piece in oven for one hour. (If it end checks severely the first 15 min you know already that it is not dry enough to use.) After 1 hour weigh it . Put back in oven for 1 /2 hour and then weigh again. Repeat until constant weight is reached (normally after one hour it is as dry as it will get and will loose no more weight, unless it started out very wet) Now you have two weight values, the original wt. and the totally dry weight. The difference between these weights is the amount of water originally in the test piece. This weight divided by the totally dry weight is the fraction of water in test piece. Multiply by 100 to get per cent moisture content.

With experience, as Sam says, you can feel when a board, or particularly shavings, are dry, or not. For example, when poplar is fresh out of the kiln and low moisture it is like handling a porcupine it is so prickly.