Anyone with a moisture meter.

SS369

SS369

Well-Known Member
Hey all.

I have a slew of thin wood that I will be using for scale material. It comes from all over the place, wood stores, shows, the forest, scraps from projects, you get the idea.
I want to insure that the moisture is low enough to use most of it without stabilizing.
Almost all of it is slabbed at 1/2 inch, some 1/4 inch (from shows/stores).
From what I can gather from reading up on meters, they do not perform well on wood thinner than 3/4 inches.
I do plan to make a storage, drying cabinet, but really would like to find out what the start and finish results are.

Anyone have some input, or relatively inexpensive meters, that work at this slender range?

Thanks in advance.
Scott
 
Weigh the wood before and after drying. It won't give you a percentage but should give you an indication if it's dry enough. I dried some 1/4 bodock scales in a food dehydrator and used a cheap Harbor freight moisture meter. I tried them in the oven first and they warped like crazy. The food dehydrator worked very well turning the heat up a little each day.
 
Thanks Randy.
I don't have an accurate scale that'll work at such light weights. Plus pre-sizing the materials to fit the dehydrator will force me to make cutting decisions I don't want to make ahead of the knives. I just want to get my wood dry and then acclimate it to a known moisture content.
What's your opinion of the HF meter?
 
SS369 said:
Thanks Randy.
I don't have an accurate scale that'll work at such light weights. Plus pre-sizing the materials to fit the dehydrator will force me to make cutting decisions I don't want to make ahead of the knives. I just want to get my wood dry and then acclimate it to a known moisture content.
What's your opinion of the HF meter?
Click to expand...
The HF meter seems to work ok but I didn’t have any way to know if it was accurate or not. I made the knife over two years ago and the scales have remained stable without any problems. The bodock was fresh cut and I can’t remember the moisture when I started but it was 7% when I finished. I wouldn’t have used fresh cut bodock but it was from a friend’s grandfather’s place and he wanted a knife from it for his father. I think he’s carried that knife everyday since.
 
Off the topic, but, what did you finish the Bodock with, if I may ask?
Did you put the knife together at the 7% ?
Have you tried your HF meter on thin wood, say 1/4"?

I appreciate the info you're sharing.
 
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