Mike Duffy wrote:
On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 22:07:46 -0400, woodchucker wrote:

There is also a scanning moisture meter these days. What you neglect
to consider is that the moisture in the wood is not just pure water.
Trees have some sugar to them. Some more than others. Resin.


Now don't fret, many of us rely on the moisture content... some
don't. Take care Theo

Greetings, all. I was in the "lurking" phase before joining this group
because I am retired now and have vague ideas about finishing my
basement. I intended to wait a few weeks before exposing myself here,
to learn the vocabulary and group norms. (& outspoken personalities,
etc.)

But I just could not resist the idea that came into my head about
using magnetic resonance imaging to measure water content in wood. Of
course, not very many people have a few million dollars to spare, a
workshop with a few hundred cubic meters of spare space, and a few
kilowatts of spare fusebox capacity.

Then it struck me like a cartoon "light bulb" balloon. You don't need
to do MRI! You can do molecular microwave resonance measurements
using a microwave oven, which is already tuned for the water molecule.

All you need to do is put a fixed quantity of water at a known
temperature (i.e. exacly 100 ml of water at exactly 0 C) along with
your piece of wood.

Then you fire up the oven for a fixed time, (i.e. exacly 100 seconds)
and measure the resultant temperature of the water. If you know the
effective power of your magnetron[1], you should be able to easily
calculate the fraction of the total water content in the oven as it
is divided between your wood piece and the container with the liquid
water.

If you are worried about damaging the wood, just use a smaller time
period. The result will be less accurate of course.

[1] You can calculate it just by seeing how long it takes to boil the
water when there is no wood in the oven.

Or - you could just go buy dimensional lumber at your local Big Box store,
and simply build the project at hand.

--

-Mike-