"BobS" wrote in message
...

Ahhhhh, you didn't say you had an outside calibrated reference (meter at
the college)..... that's cheating.....;-)

Nope, I could just as readily calibrated against the tables of EMC vs RH
that I referred to. The cheeseheads have done all kinds of tests to arrive
at the data, might as well take advantage of it. We stored at 45% RH at the
college (~20C/68F), giving us an 8.4%. If the meter read 8.8 at the
surface, it was in error or we checked the arrival date.


But even so, I don't think that is an accurate method since the various
species of wood need to be at equilibrium (known reference point) which he
would need a calibrated meter to read their mc to start with - which he
doesn't have (for sake of our discussion). But... he could do the old
standby of measuring their weight, then drying them slowly in an oven
until there is no more change in their weight. That requires an accurate
weighing device which I'll assume he also doesn't have (unless he's gone
postal on us...).

Not sure you understand that RH / EMC concept. If species A says 6% and
species B 8% in the same controlled environment which should give 7% EMC,
then you have a provisional correction of +1 and -1, respectively. Now
follow changes and increase your sample size.

As to oven drying, the advantage to NDT is the number of samples you can
take. Overall, I think this is going to be more meaningful.



He could just say - the meter indicates that it's below 10% - close
enough, use it .............;-)

Or, as I, who no longer bothers to meter, say - It's not as if drying it for
use next week will make a difference week after next.