Wall mounted moister meters?

Al killian

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Floydada, Tx
Hope this is in the right spot, maybe I should have moved it to the tools forum.:dunno:I am looking at getting a moister meter that I can hang on the wall in the new shop to keep a eye on the moister in the shop. It is a brick building and feels damp in there, but then again it has not been used/cared for in a few decades. Where should one go to find a moister meter to hange on the wall? Any day now it will be powered from the poll and not a extension cord and generator.:thumb:
 
Hope this is in the right spot, maybe I should have moved it to the tools forum.:dunno:I am looking at getting a moister meter that I can hang on the wall in the new shop to keep a eye on the moister in the shop. It is a brick building and feels damp in there, but then again it has not been used/cared for in a few decades. Where should one go to find a moister meter to hange on the wall? Any day now it will be powered from the poll and not a extension cord and generator.:thumb:
Like this one?
web5375big.jpg
 
Thanks to both Rennie and Charlie for your help. Seeing as time is not on my side rigth now, I am going with the woodcraft one. Maybe after things settle down around here I will make a nicer one.
 
Thanks to both Rennie and Charlie for your help. Seeing as time is not on my side rigth now, I am going with the woodcraft one. Maybe after things settle down around here I will make a nicer one.
Check out the Woodcraft website - these are on clearance right now for about $16.:thumb:
 
Here is a poor mans hygrometer... but it's a little slow, as I explain. Not that anybody needs proof, but here is a graphic example of how much wood CAN move when the weather changes and humidity with it. I took a worse case scenario, a species that is notorious for moving as the weather does, oak, and cut a strip off the end of a flatsawn board (flatsawn moves a lot more than a riftsawn or quartersawn board does). I wanted to see how much that cutoff would swell and shrink as the weather changed, so I then simply attached ONLY ONE end of that cutoff to a piece of plywood (got this idea out of Hoadly's book, Understanding Wood). The other end of the cutoff "floats" as I attached a hook which is attached to the very bottom of a large copper pointer, which is then pivoted a short distance above that. (see closeup pic of end of cutoff). So... as the humidity goes up, that piece of oak swells, which pushes the bottom of that copper pointer away from the oak, which (because it is pivoted on the plywood) moves the top of the pointer to the right. As you can see from the lines on the plywood showing the full range of that pointer over time, that piece of oak which is kinda "floating" and allowed to move, did indeed move almost half an inch from full swell (humid day) to full shrink (dry day). It doesn't move fast because of the relativly large size of the piece of wood, and it generally lags behind a relative humidiy meter by a day or so. In other words, if you take an RH reading every day and see the RH starting to rise, the wood/pointer won't react much for another day or so till you can see it start to move in that direction. I havn't taken the time to rig it up and test this, but I suspect if I had a much skinneir (but just as long) piece of wood with less bulk and mass, the meter would react faster. Call me nuts, but this kind of stuff interests me to no end. If I had the time, I'd have dozens of these little jigs set up with different types of wood, cut different ways and lengths just to experiment.

meter_0.jpg


meter_1.jpg
 
Dave, that is very cool indeed.

I cannot remember where I saw it, might have been a Fine Woodworking book, but someone made a similar thing, but used thin piece of wood, and then two very dissimilar woods, to make the movement even more pronounced. With a modern Hygrometer to calibrate it, it would be as accurate as would be needed for our wood working purposes.

Cheers!
 
Here is a poor mans hygrometer... but it's a little slow, as I explain. Not that anybody needs proof, but here is a graphic example of how much wood CAN move when the weather changes and humidity with it. I took a worse case scenario, a species that is notorious for moving as the weather does, oak, and cut a strip off the end of a flatsawn board (flatsawn moves a lot more than a riftsawn or quartersawn board does). I wanted to see how much that cutoff would swell and shrink as the weather changed, so I then simply attached ONLY ONE end of that cutoff to a piece of plywood (got this idea out of Hoadly's book, Understanding Wood). The other end of the cutoff "floats" as I attached a hook which is attached to the very bottom of a large copper pointer, which is then pivoted a short distance above that. (see closeup pic of end of cutoff). So... as the humidity goes up, that piece of oak swells, which pushes the bottom of that copper pointer away from the oak, which (because it is pivoted on the plywood) moves the top of the pointer to the right. As you can see from the lines on the plywood showing the full range of that pointer over time, that piece of oak which is kinda "floating" and allowed to move, did indeed move almost half an inch from full swell (humid day) to full shrink (dry day). It doesn't move fast because of the relativly large size of the piece of wood, and it generally lags behind a relative humidiy meter by a day or so. In other words, if you take an RH reading every day and see the RH starting to rise, the wood/pointer won't react much for another day or so till you can see it start to move in that direction. I havn't taken the time to rig it up and test this, but I suspect if I had a much skinneir (but just as long) piece of wood with less bulk and mass, the meter would react faster. Call me nuts, but this kind of stuff interests me to no end. If I had the time, I'd have dozens of these little jigs set up with different types of wood, cut different ways and lengths just to experiment.

meter_0.jpg


meter_1.jpg

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You've used the same principle as the common hair hygrometer but yours is probably more accurate.
In my opinion a bowl of sugar in the shop is better than the hair. No crust on the sugar it's dry. Thin crust it's a little humid. Solid sugar in the bowl it's way too humid.:rofl:
 
Dave, that is very cool indeed.

I cannot remember where I saw it, might have been a Fine Woodworking book, but someone made a similar thing, but used thin piece of wood, and then two very dissimilar woods, to make the movement even more pronounced. With a modern Hygrometer to calibrate it, it would be as accurate as would be needed for our wood working purposes.

Cheers!

Thanks Stuart, as I said... if I had the time to play, I would experiment with different kinds of wood, different sizes and lengths of wood etc etc. Got more irons in the fire at the moment than I can handle, so can't do that now. Would be serious fun though.
 
Hi Al,

I purchased a couple hygrometers from Holme (they make humidifiers, etc.). They were great. You could have anything you wanted. One unit would say it was humid and the other would say it was dry. They varied 20 to 50%.

So if you want a dry day you look at unit #1. If you want a wet day you look at unit #2. What I am really saying is that it would be a good idea to go to Fry's or some other large electronics box and look at a dozen or more units. If several say it is 40%, I would purchase one of them.

If you have a chemist friend or a student taking chemistry they could come to your shop and tell you how accurately your purchased unit is functioning. I pick on the chemists because in chem class you have to calibrate your own thermometers, hygrometers, etc.

I have a hygrometer. I will be glad to give it to you...I will even pay the postage. However, I have no idea how accurately it registers. If you have a friend who has one you could compare them. If they agree...good. If they do not agree, you will have to do like the lawyers and get a third opinion.

Enjoy,

Jim
 
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