Hand-held moisture meter calibrations for some West Coast softwood species

Hand-held moisture meters are commonly used in wood processing operations. There are two common types of hand-held meters, the conductance type (with pins) and the dielectric type (without pins). These meters are generically named after the particular electrical property measured in wood, and are used to estimate oven-dry basis moisture content (MC). There continues to be interest in how accurate common moisture meters are relative to the oven-dry basis MC (sometimes referred to as the "true" or actual MC). The UC Forest Products Laboratory is involved in a study to evaluate operational characteristics of some relatively new meters and some meters that have been available for a number of years. Although the scope of the overall study will be reviewed here, this paper will only discuss a portion of the study currently being conducted. The objectives of the portion of the study discussed in this paper were to 1) determine the most appropriate "material density" setting for species being evaluated for a new dielectric-type meter, 2) determine the corrections for the meters and species investigated, 3) evaluate the relative accuracies of the meters, and 4) evaluate the effect of density on moisture meters.