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View Full Version : Moisture Meter for my Wood Stash



Mike Deschler
11-02-2005, 8:56 PM
Today we had a great guy with a new $40K Woodmizer come out and saw my cherry and walnut logs from trees that we recently dropped. Now that they are safely stickered, stacked and bound with ratched tie downs in my attached garage, I now need to buy and to learn how to use a moisture meter and monitor the drying progress.

First of all, I need your recco's on a moderately priced moisture meter and a idea as to how often I need to check on the drying process. Fortunately my garage also houses my gas furnace and the temperature never falls below freezing along with the area not being very humid. The sawyer said that it will take upwards of a year for outside covered drying for 4/4 lumber. I am thinking that it should take less time in my warmer garage. In fact, I can also put a fan near the lumber area to force more air cirulation to speed up the process if necessary.

I can hardly wait to start using my own trees for my future projects.

Keep up this great board, it is my favorite read every evening.

Kevin Martini
11-02-2005, 9:04 PM
Curious about a decent moisture meter myself....but thought I'd post just to mention that the drying time has less to do with the temerature and more to do with the relative humidity.

A stack of wood would dry out faster in the freezing cold south pole "desert" then it would in a hot/humid Texas garage....and yes, adding a fan would definitely help.

Did you coat the ends with anything?

Kevin

Steve Schoene
11-03-2005, 8:49 AM
I have an Electrophysics pinless meter that I like. Pinless meters are supposed to be less accurate on rough lumber than the pin type, but I've used mine plenty of times on rough lumber and have always felt the results were still quite accurate. And, I'm surely not going to take a pin type into a lumber supplier's facility when buying wood so pinless is more versatile.