Wagner moisture meter

[rvieceli]

If you are taking the time and effort to make something out of a piece of wood then you should seriously consider picking up a moisture meter. Really useful if you are getting wood from a sawyer.

There are a couple of styles of Meter. The kind where you poke a couple of pins in the wood and a painless variety. I opted for a pinless style. Since a lot of folks aren’t that thrilled when you poke holes in their stuff even if they are small.  [eek]

I bought a Wagner 910. It reads at depth of about 3/4 inch. I rarely work with anything less than 1.5 thick. They do make other models for other test depths as well as a dual mode for two depths.  They all have the ability to be set for different species of wood and come with a book for the settings.

I have been very happy with mine.

Here’s some photos

foam lined protective case

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Inside

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Meter, instructions, species settings and calibration tool

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In use

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The best price I found online was here: they shipped fast and everything was great.
https://www.tools4flooring.com/wagner-orion-910-deep-depth-pinless-wood-moisture-meter.html

Amazon has them as well.

Ron

 

[ear3]

[member=3192]rvieceli[/member] I actually got the exact same model last year, though since it's my first moisture meter, I don't have anything to compare it to.  I have to say the pinless measurement is a blessing and a curse, because I found myself getting wound up checking the moisture levels every few feet on some boards and finding a swing of up to 3%  But overall it seems to be a great and accurate tool.

I actually do wish now that I had gotten the model that allows for multiple depths -- it would come in handy checking the relative levels for the inner and outer face when resawing boards.

Not all the species are pre-programmed into the machine, but their website has a pretty comprehensive table to work from -- though ironically, they did not have the specific species of the boards I had originally I had bought it for, English Elm, though they did have some other varieties of elm that I assumed were in the same ballpark.

I purchased it as well from tools4flooring, which is by far and away the most competitive price I found.