The Forestry Forum

Hi, so I just milled this maple in the spring and I'm already getting around 12% moisture content with Dr. Meter. That seems really low to me given such a short amount of time drying outside - each slab is 2 or 2.5 inches thick btw.  I was preparing for multiple years, honestly I only checked because I just got the meter. What do you think?

I have some black walnut I milled around same time reading 15%.

These were the first slabs I ever milled and my first time using a moisture meter so very possible I'm doing one or more things wrong.

Thanks in advance.

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How deep does the meter read? Does it allow you to adjust for different species?

Alan

it appears you are reading from the outside surface, the interior will have a higher
moisture level as will the interior center.

my firewood when i split in half length wise it will read 14% on the inside
ends of the split and 21% on the middle of the split.

How long had the log been down?  Was the tree alive when felled?  Maple dries pretty quickly, I could see the surface reading that at this point but the core will likely be a different matter.  Try multiple places along the slab and the under side to get a general feeling of what the average is.  From there you could remove a sample and use the oven dry method to get a real world number, which will give you a reference point for your meter moving ahead.  

Thanks for all the great responses.

The trees were alive but not in great shape when they came down. One has some lovely spalting though and that had been down for a few months. The other was fresh. 

I believe these HF electromagnetic meters are supposed to read up to 3/4 inch into wood. It does have density settings which I did set and I also calibrated it.

I will look into using the oven dry method (will look that up)  to get a sense of accuracy for the meter.  

There is a false statement that floats around in the hobby world that air drying takes a year per inch of thickness.  In truth, some species like pine can air dry to 20% MC in two warm months.  But, 8/4 oak will take 120 warm days.  Indeed, 12% MC in air drying in NC is too dry for the environment, but we certainly could see under 20% MC.