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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Gene - I've dried down and weighed more blocks of wood
than I care to admit. I never was able to get consistent results. IMHO, it may
be difficult to do oven drying with a softwood like spruce because a lot of
volatile organic compounds are outgassed during the drying process along with
the water and I think that tends to skew the results...... Anyway, I gave
up on that a long time ago.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><I think you are correct and I was suspicious about the
dried block - it will never take up moisture like the un-dried blocks so even at
190 deg f for 24 hrs something damaging must be happening to the
wood.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Table 3-4, "Moisture content of wood in equilibrium with
stated temperature and relative humidity", in the USDA Wood Handbook is a
table that lists temperature dependant wood moisture contents
(MC) at various relative humidity (RH) values - i.e. wood that has
come into equilibrium with an environment at a certain temperature and RH
will have a certain MC.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>< I have it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>So you don't have to measure MC directly (wood moisture
meters do not work reliably at MC of about 6% and below - so don't bother
buying a moisture meter). All you need to do is to monitor your hot box
environment for temperature and RH. I suppose a cheap RH meter is okay, but I
bought a good one - about $200 - and comes with a certificate of calibration
to some fancy-dancy standard. So now you have your temperature and RH known,
now all you need to do is to determine whether the panel has equilibrated with
the hot box environment. There are a number of ways to do this, I use a direct
and very simple method - it's got a complex name - don't let it scare
you - ready? - "Direct </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Linear Measurement" - i.e., put a tape measure across
the panel and measure it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>< Do you have the sling hygrometer? What brand and
where did you get ?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I suppose that after the board is ribbed, this same
movement can be measured as available crown with similar associations with
changing environment?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks Terry,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Gene</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>