Moisture meters and alcohol

Re: Moisture meters and alcohol

JL

>Not the same beast. Moisture meters are in one sense reading the conductivity of the wood. Water (with electrolytes) is somewhat conductive. Alcohol is not. Back to basic chemistry here - water has a dissociable proton which allows it to conduct electricity (somewhat). If you add salts, it conducts a lot better. It takes more effort to get the proton off of ethanol (alcohol). Therefore it won't work.

Re: Moisture meters and alcohol

John K Jordan

>Do you have one? If so, just cut a board in half, soak one half, protect the other from air drying, then test both halves. You could carry the two pieces to the store and get them to test. (The local Woodcraft carries these meters)

If you have no meter and store, I might be persuaded test with mine.

Note that the meters, at least the one I have, must be set to compensate for the "book" density of the wood indicating to me that the meter is sensitive to more than simply H2O molecules. Based on this, I would guess that it would be affected by alcohol in the wood.

JKJ in East TN

Re: Moisture meters and alcohol

John K Jordan

>>Moisture meters are in one sense reading

>the conductivity of the wood

Do you know the mechanism by which the pinless meters work? (If developing such a meter here without researching it, we might start with a microwave system as proven with subsurface detection in other materials such as concrete and ceramics.)

Are the handheld pinless meters electromagnetic, perhaps inducing and measuring some kind of eddy current as often used with conductive metals? Is the water in wood conductive enough for wood? A high-frequency field? (I didn't try checking my meter for magnetic or any other type of field.)

JKJ in East TN

Re: Nope

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In Jersey

>Anything that changes the capacitence of the wood will mess up the meter. I use a CT-100 Electrophysics meter which will read to 1" depth, however it was useless for soap-soaked bowls because the ionic nature of the detergent wrecked any possible reading (I had near bone-dry wood read as 28% MC). The pin meters measure resistance in the wood as a function of moisture content, but I think they would be likewise inhibited in any readings.

Stick with the weighing routine.

M

Re: Moisture meters and alcohol

JL

>Not sure about the pinless, just the pinned. I am assuming that they read eddy currents.

I am probably saying more than I know,

Dave Smith, Longview, WA

>but that never stopped me before. I understand the pen less meters were measuring density. That is the reason for compensation settings for different wood. Too many variables for me. Besides, moisture is all relative anyway. If you are wanting to check bowls as they are drying then weight is the simplest way to do it. I think the 2 kilo postage scale I got was about $25.

FYI - I find the grams scale has smaller increments than the lb scale and it is a lot easier to graft grams. Also, grams come in handy for tracking small items like pen blanks as they dry.

Dave Smith

Safe at the computer until the wife gets home in Longview, WA.

Re: I am probably saying more than I know,

DWFII

>Dave, anyone...

I got to looking on Ebay for a postage scale. They seem reasonably priced. But can anyone give me any guidelines for buying one? Are they all chinese made (presumably) and all about equally poor to good? Or is one better than another? Also what is the weight range I want? 35lb's?

DW

In the High Desert of Central Oregon

Sam's Club

tdaniel

>postage scale, digital, grams or ounces, 340 lb max; less than $50.

Re: I am probably saying more than I know, *LINK*

Walter Ahlgrim

>I just bought one like this(see link). Spend the extra 2 bucks and get the white as the cheaper ones color is putrid. The display is just a little small but you won�t feel bad if you drop and break it like I did my wife�s 100 scale. 13 pounds is enough most bowls.


Ebay