Hygrometer

[Ron Nossaman]

>Hey Del or Ron, is +3% mc good enough when drying a board down to produce 
>"consistent" results?
>
>Terry Farrell

I'm using the little Whatman pen type hygrometer/thermometer I carry when 
I'm tuning. I bought it from Markson for about $50 maybe six or seven years 
ago. It claims accuracy of +-2% down to, I think, around 10%. I have no 
idea if it, or any other unit, actually delivers what it claims. The +-3% 
is probably realistically accurate enough for soundboard work, given that 
you don't know exactly what any given panel is going to give you from any 
given MC anyway, so ultimately, it's a crapshoot all around. Just design 
the rib set with crowned ribs of adequate dimension and number to support 
the bulk of the string bearing load without requiring much from the panel, 
and it becomes less critical than if you were building a genuine state of 
the art compression crowned board. For the most part, the consistency of 
your results will come from your rib design anyway, not from minor 
differences in your panel MC.


Ron N