Main Discussion Area > Bows
Storing Bows
FlintWalker:
I work at a large lumber mill and we have a guy that runs the dry kilns who says not to trust moisture meters. He weighs samples of green wood, then bakes them in an oven until there is zero moisture. After that he weighs them again and gets the moisture content. I'm not exactly sure how the formula works but lets say a piece of green wood weighs 98 grams before drying and 85 after. He takes 98 divided by 85 and gets 1.152941176 then he says the wood has 15.2 % moisture. I don't know why but he says to pay no attention to anything to the left of the decimal point. I dry all my wood using this formula and it has worked for me. He dries millions of feet so I guess he knows what he's doing.
I usually take a piece off the end of the limb to weigh. It don't take a very big piece but you do have to weigh it in grams for it to work.
Another example would be if I took a sample from the end of a stave and it weighed 200 grams, baked it till it lost no more weight and it came out to 175 grams. Then divided 200 by 175 and got 1.142857143. My wood has a moisture content of 14.2%. I would then take another sample from the other end or somewhere on the same piece of wood, weigh it and keep it in the same environment as the stave I was drying. From time to time, weigh the sample. We know it started at 14.2% and we want say 9%, if it's starting weight was 135 grams and it lost 6 grams, we would divide 135 by 129 and get 1.046511628 which is 4.6%. 14.2 minus 4.6 =9.6%. Once you establish the moisture content of a stave you don't have to take another sample, you can just weigh the whole stave if your scales are big enough and as it dries keep weighing it until you get the exact moisture you want.
For this to work, your first sample must be dry as powder. Even after he bakes his samples for 24 hours he will put them in a microwave for 30 seconds at a time and cook them until they loose no more weight.
I know this was a little off the subject but I thought it was worth sharing. I don't completely understand the formula but it works for me.
shaun748:
that is interesting..I may have to do that because I have heard different opinions on the pin-type meters.
a few seconds after posting this I found a website that describes this formula--- http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-156.html
Here is just a portion describing the formula for weighing wood..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Example(1)
The green weight of a specimen of red oak is 136 grams. Its oven dry weight is 100 grams. What is its moisture content?
Ans:
= the green weight = 136 grams
= the oven dry weight = 100 grams
(I MUST PARAPHRASE FROM THAT WEBSITE HERE BECAUSE IT DOES NOT LET ME COPY THE FANCY MATHMATICAL EQUATION)
green weight of 136 grams MINUS 100 grams of oven dry weight=36% ,,,,To my high school educated eyes that appears to be the easy way to say it( of course the formula to do this looks much official)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is an additional page from that same site which is very interesting in regard to seasoning wood, etc..
http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-155.html
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version