[thegreatwaldo]

Hi Tom
I just got one of those meters new but it had no instruction manual in the box! I tried to get some help from the sellers but they have no idea (fleabay) Is there a possibility that you could send me a scan of the settings for different wood species. Thanks in advance.
Cheers
Andrew

Hey LJ s ,

Another ignorant question? LOL!

Had a recent discussion with Matt Cremona. He owns an Expensive Wagner inductive type moisture meter. almost 400 dollars? Not making enough in woodworking to warrent it. After talking with Matt I decided to check out Amazon and found a RisePro Wood Moisture Meter inductive type that had an excellent review.

It is calibrated for many of the common woods woodworkers often use. It operates on wood density, temperature and pre calibrated values.

There is a small instruction manual and a chart of the woods it is calibrated to measure. The woods are grouped into a gear 1-8.

I just purchased a pick up load of hard maple from CharlieK after he had sold the majority so he gave me a good price.

The wood is now on a drying rack in my basement. Guess what ! Hard Maple isn t in any of the category s in the gears! Did a Google search but it s becoming more convoluted, sooooo I thought I d check with the smart, experienced folk here. Yes I did a check on the site and found little on moisture meters.


Again your comments and thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

- DocSavage45

 

[RichT]

Andrew, PM me with an email and I can send you a PDF of the user manual.

Here's the crux of the matter of using that meter. It has eight "gears" and which one you select depends on the density of the wood. I wrote about it in a previous post in this thread, but basically, you can go to the wood database and look up the wood you're measuring. Look for the line that says "Specific Gravity (Basic, 12% MC)" and choose the value on the right for 12%. For example red alder is 0.45. Then you can look it up on the chart to see what gear to use.

Here are the gear ranges (gear on the left, density on the right):

1: 0.27 - 0.36
2: 0.38 - 0.45
3: 0.45 - 0.55
4: 0.55 - 0.65
5: 0.65 - 0.75
6: 0.75 - 0.85
7: 0.85 - 0.95
8: 0.95 - 1.05

P.S. Read my previous post regarding why I'm using specific gravity rather than density in kg/m3. Basically it's the same value only you don't have to do any arithmetic.

 

[MarioF]

"It operates on wood density, temperature and pre calibrated values." There is your answer for maple or any other non listed species, just get the density for the wood you are interested and use the gear that is closest to this number, I own a couple of Lignomats and it is quite common around here to round off the wood density of local species to the listed ones. In practical terms air dried lumber should be around 11-15% and kiln dried 8-10% in order to be ready for work, in the end wood will adjust its moisture content in relation to the environmental moisture.

 

[thegreatwaldo]

Hi Rich
Thanks for the kind offer. I don't have enough posts yet to pm you but can get me on [email protected]
Just remove the - after the @ (try and stop the spam bots) Thanks again
Andrew

Andrew, PM me with an email and I can send you a PDF of the user manual.

Here s the crux of the matter of using that meter. It has eight "gears" and which one you select depends on the density of the wood. I wrote about it in a previous post in this thread, but basically, you can go to the wood database and look up the wood you re measuring. Look for the line that says "Specific Gravity (Basic, 12% MC)" and choose the value on the right for 12%. For example red alder is 0.45. Then you can look it up on the chart to see what gear to use.

Here are the gear ranges (gear on the left, density on the right):

1: 0.27 - 0.36
2: 0.38 - 0.45
3: 0.45 - 0.55
4: 0.55 - 0.65
5: 0.65 - 0.75
6: 0.75 - 0.85
7: 0.85 - 0.95
8: 0.95 - 1.05

P.S. Read my previous post regarding why I m using specific gravity rather than density in kg/m3. Basically it s the same value only you don t have to do any arithmetic.

- Rich

 

[thegreatwaldo]

Hi Rich

Thanks. I tried the gear ranges and wood database. Seems to work well.

Cheers

Andrew

 

[BobAnderton]

So, a trivial addition to this thread that describes how to use wood density to select the correct "gear" or range setting for the Rise Pro wood moisture meter discussed above. I plotted the midpoint of the density range for each scale setting to the get equation of the line relating density and scale setting

to get that Scale Setting = 10.3 x Density (g/cm3) - 2.2462

I then looked up the 12%MC density (from the wood database) for each species I've milled and have laying around and made an excel table of what scale setting I should use for each, and printed that out and keep it with the meter.

not rocket science, but I thought the method might be helpful to describe since it makes it easier to have excel generate the scale or "gear" number from the density.

 

[DocSavage45]

Bob,

"Trivial Addition"

?

? LOL! Thanks! for you it might be trivial for others it could be "rocket Science!"

 

[RichT]

to get that Scale Setting = 10.3 x Density (g/cm3) - 2.2462

- BobAnderton

Bob, what you've shown is of major value to Rise Pro owners like me. Not only can I program that equation into my PCalc calculator and never need the chart again but, more importantly, it shows the linearity within a gear range. From looking at your graph, I can see that a wood with a density of 0.43 will likely have a MC approximately 60% of the distance in readings between gears 2 and 3. I'd found the large steps in the displayed MC to be a real weakness of the meter, but now I can visualize something a little more continuous. I'm sure it's not exact, but it does offer some improvement over the steps alone.

 

[DanielP]

Lignomat is what I have had for 15 years or more, pin style. reads what every the wood is. No fail on the same pins. Best of luck.

- Dan

Why do they let duplicate names?

 

[RichT]

You can't just stick a pin meter in the face of the board and get a good reading. All you're measuring is the MC in the outer fraction of an inch. To get an accurate reading with a pin meter, you need to saw off a few inches from the end of the board and measure it there. That will be an accurate reading of the MC.

 

[htl]

Love it when you brainy wood workers get together to solve a problem, I can hear the gears working from here, and love to see the problem figured out.