Moisture meter buying advice

[Rob Cheetham]

I'm getting tired of thinking my wood is dry and then it warping after preping the wood up lol. So I have decided to purchase a moisture meter.

I'm leaning towards a pinless version one but my question is which ones are decent and which ones should I avoid. Or are they all pretty much the same.

I want pinless as don't want to be marking all my wood with the pin holes.

Any links to products would be great. Thank you

 

[johnnyb]

In a previous career I dried buildings after floods and we always used protimeters. For wood you really need the hammer pins to get below the surface.pinless isn't really accurate and protimeters call it a comparative tool.

 

[Beau]

Yes, my old one is pin type Protimeter. Only recently noticed there was calibration gadget in the bag it lives in. Thought I had better check it and it was spot on. Not bad for a 15+-year-old moisture meter. Also compared it with oven drying tests and it was within 1-2%

 

[custard]

If you're a joiner get a pin meter, if you're a cabinet maker there are advantages in using a pinless. The problem is that a pinless is more expensive for comparable performance.

Most of the professional furniture making workshops I know use either a Lignomat pinless or a Wagner pinless. Personally I use a Lignomat and all I can say is I'm happy with the results.

One final point, a moisture meter isn't a guarantee against warping. For one thing kilning quality seems to be dropping. Before spending too much money you might be better off first revisiting your processing techniques. On critical components select your boards carefully and look for straight grain with no evidence of wind in the sawn board, remove timber equally from both sides of the board, work down in stages leaving a few days between each stage, store in stick throughout. Often times that's the real key to getting reliable results.