Drying Reclaimed Oak

[Swing_blade_Andy]

Thats interesting james and it makes sence.
However I can yet figure why the blue reads lower than the natural colour sections... I thought it would have been the other way around.



Andrew

[james]

depends on what the mineral is that is staining the wood iron or sulpher have lower conductivity than copper for example
james

[Den Socling]

Actually, there's two ways of measuring moisture electronically. Pin-type meters measure resistance but meters without pins measure capacitance.

[Swing_blade_Andy]

Thats interesting stuff.
My moisture meter has a 'pad' and it averages the reading over the whole pad area (about the size of a box of matches). I am reasonably sure that the staining was due to the effects of salt water.

I was wondering also. This wood came out very very hard indeed, but also quite brittle. I was wondering wether there wasn't an elemnt of case hardening going on. In whcih case should the drying environment he interdispersed with steam injection????

I'm not complaining about the end product, its fine wood, but very very difficult to work, my hand tools were not up to the job.. they just bounced off.
Andrew

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Old watersoaked wood needs to dry slowly, at least ours does.  Vac Kiln was how we were going to do it, with low heat, then set pitch in the pine at high temp.