It is very common for moisture to become trapped in isolated ares of the slab. When you use the pinless meter, be sure to check all over the slab. Even most of the unreputable dealers I’ve dealt with have a good Wagner meter. If they don’t own one, think hard about purchasing wood from them. The good news is, any reputable slab supplier will own one of these pinless meters. However if you are part of the other 99%, $500 is way too much to spend for a one-off coffee table project. And if you don’t own one, its time you did. Then a pinless meter is just a necessary tool to own. If you are like me and build a table or more every month. The pin meters are at least accurate in that outer 1/16th inch. I say get a good Wagner, or a cheap pin meter. I have owned them, and unfortunately cannot recommend them. I should also note that cheaper pinless meters are available. Which is understandably out of reach for your average DIYer. The downside of these is they cost anywhere from $380 to $540. So you know just how dry your wood needs to be at equilibrium. In addition to giving MC, they will also give you the exact EMC of your living room (for example). The new best of the best moisture meters from Wagner actually have whole bevy of additional features as well. It does this by sending frequencies into the wood to get the MC, so it leaves absolutely no marks. Which will tell you the MC of a piece of wood up to 3/4” down inside the wood. The alternative to a pin meter is a pinless meter. And second, they put little holes in your piece. First, they only tell the MC of the outer 1/16th of an inch of your slab. The problem with these is pretty self evident. Which tell the MC by inserting two sharp pins into your wood about 1/16th of an inch. You can buy a cheap one on amazon for around $25. When is comes to moisture meters, they are not all created equally. Those eastern Oregon slabs have now been drying for six years and still have areas of moisture of over 30%. Turns out that rule can be true, but more often that not, it isn’t a good rule to follow. I even bought some air dried slabs from a very dry part of Eastern Oregon. Meaning, if you had a two inch thick slab, you could set it out of the elements and it would air dry in two years. I used to follow the old rule of “one inch per year” to air dry. So how do you know if a slab is dry? There is really only one good answer, and that is to use a moisture meter (more on these below). A slab sitting for a year or two might still have a MC of 30% or more. For comparison, a fresh cut walnut tree might have moisture content (MC) of 60%. EMC varies by region, Oregon is around 9%, Arizona is around 6%, and a humid area like Florida is around 12%. Meaning, all wood will have some moisture left in it. Either through air drying or kiln drying. All that EMC means is the percentage of water left in a piece of wood when it reaches equilibrium. A more accurate term would be “has it reached equilibrium moisture content (EMC)?” However you should know, nobody says that, and “dry” is still the expression we have. Dry is actually not the most accurate term. The definition of dry wood varies by the part of your country you are in. The wood will warp and twist as it dries, so you need the wood to be at equilibrium before you start working on it. The most important thing to know is, is it dry? You DO NOT want to work with wet wood. Before you start shopping for wood, you need to know a couple things first.
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