Thread: Moisture meter

In my experience there is not such thing as a moisture meter at a reasonable price

Carbatec have one for about $80

The carbatec one seems ok (Ihave one)

Originally Posted by China

In my experience there is not such thing as a moisture meter at a reasonable price

That's been my experience as well. The guy that came to check the moisture on our new 125mm wide floor boards and said they were ready to lay couldn't explain why 6 months later they had lost 5mm in width.

I subsequently found out that lower cost meters rely solely on electrical resistivity which varies substantially between species and even within the same species. These meters also don't work well or at all below 10%. The more expensive meters use ultrasound and you have to know what the timber is and allow for that.

I bought the carbatec $80 model at teh woodshow last weekend and havent given it a try yet. but the research ive done indicates that i will need to drill into the timber to get a satisfactory reading as the surface will be drier than the middle. there is also a table in a book im reading that seems to give conversion factors for different timbers. im still experimenting with all this so dont take any of what i said as gospel, but i hope its useful to someone

Give it a go - I need to know before the Melbourne show!

I did read something about "comparative moisture level" - perhaps that has something to do with it - not necessarily an accurate overall %, but you can definitely see a drop in moisure levels over time, plotting it out until it stabilises. Is there any validity in that?

Thanks, I see the moisture meter options are more complicated than I thought. I read somewhere that I could dry test pieces of different woods in an oven 103oC for 24hrs, accurately weighing before and after to get an idea of dry/moisture percentage by calculating weight reduction. I presume I use the moisture meter to read if the moisture in the log has dropped to the same percentage as measured in the test piece. Is it more accurate if I resaw the log and test the centre pith of the log rather than just putting the probes on the outside timber? The max diameter of the log will be about 3ins. I'll eventually be milling timber to planks of 12" length,2" width and <1/4" thickness for model making. I've also read about microwaving logs to dry it. Has anyone tried this without wrecking the microwave?
Thanks

If you can get your hands on a copy, Australian Wood Review No. 35 has an article on moisture meters.

Originally Posted by doug the slug

there is also a table in a book im reading that seems to give conversion factors for different timbers.

heres a link to similar tables

http://oak.arch.utas.edu.au/tbia/tec...ation&typeID=4

there arent many of them there, if anyone else turns some up with a search, please post the link

I have a Carbatec pin type about the size of a matchbox but a bit longer,it is yellow and cost $160 and find it to be fairly accurate.I have been asked by a saw mill to test it against their pinless so they can calibrate theirs......i have no complaints.....

Reguards Tasman

We use a conductance-type moisture meter (with pins) if you want an accurateare measurment than you need to buy this.We have the GANN HT65 model the price was about 400$. Here is an article about moisture meters: http://www.lega.si/tmp/wood.moisture.meters.pdf Hope this helps, bye

All this depends on how fussy you are being and what you need the moisture meter for.
It is easy to spend $1000 on a moisture meter
But you can spend $80 or so and get results as long as you know the proper procedures and the limitations involved.
cheers