Moisture meter for wood recommendations

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ken1111

Joined
Aug 23, 2011
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Hey guys with all the talk about wood recently I remembered I have some redwood, maple and california buckeye burn sitting in my garage. They are still in huge chunk form and was wondering if its time to cut them......

But I dont have a moisture meter and know nothing about them. Which ones do you guys use? Do cheap ones work well enough? I need to tell if i should cut them to be sent for stabilization? Or should i shell out some $$ for a fancy one?


(I looked up and found an old thread with an expensive recommendation re-posting for more opinions)

Thanks in advance.
 
Harbor Freight has one for about $12. Reviews seem to be mostly positive. Not sure how accurate it is but if you're on a budget....
 
I got one at home depot and it seems to work fine. I am not exactly sure how accurate it is but it seems to be accurate atleast to a point. Cant remember the price as it was a couple years ago.
 
Is this some kind of a plug for a website you are a part owner in or a valid redirect gone wrong? I find no moisture meters on the site you hotlinked, and since that is your first post, have to ask... I'm going to assume it was an innocent mistake...?

Edit: Well, in quoting you I got to see the HTML code, and that seems rather intentional. We don't do that here... Post reported.

Edit 2: oops... in quoting and editing I forgot to remove the quote. We don't do that either. Sorry.
 
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Ok, now the question I have is "pinned or pin-less". The pinned meters are much cheaper, but I'm wondering how far you need to stick the pins into the wood? I would think that some of the hard woods we work with would prevent us from getting the pins in very far (without the use of a hammer which I'm sure is not recommended by the factory)
 
The pinned ones work ok if you cut the wood and check the interior.
Some wood can have a surface reading of 8% and still be over 20% inside.
 
Burl Source said:
The pinned ones work ok if you cut the wood and check the interior.
Some wood can have a surface reading of 8% and still be over 20% inside.
Click to expand...
This post by Mark cannot be stressed enough. Pinned meters only check the surface. This means very little to knifemakers unless you are testing scales.

BTW, I compared my meters against more than 10 Harbor Freight meters. The HF meters were inaccurate by several points and inconsistent.

Chuck
 
Hey Mark and Chuck since you both are very reputable suppliers what meter do you use? Thanks =)
 
The bad news is my Wagner L607 moisture meter is discontinued. :(

The good news is it was replaced by a new model:
http://www.wagnermeters.com/shop/wood-moisture-meters/mmc210-digital-proline-moisture-meter/

mmc-210.png


The meter measures up to .75" deep.

I might need a new tool! ;)
 
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