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  • Drying a "green" ceder fence board for painting.

    From Bob F@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 22 13:46:55 2023
    I bought a 5/6" x 4" ceder fence board for a spacer on hinge for a pump
    cover, not thinking that it was green wood. I used my jointer to smooth
    the surface and reduce it to the 3/8" thickness I needed. In that
    process, I realized that the wood was very wet.

    Doing some online research, the most frequent opinion seemed to be to
    allow 4-5 weeks fence boards to dry before painting. I put the board in
    my furnace room, which my gas water heater keeps quite warm. A day or so
    later, I thought to weigh the board with my kitchen scale at 562g. A few
    days later, it weighed 499g. a few days later it was down to around 482g
    and seems to be about the same now, a couple of days after that.

    I now am wondering if the lack of more weight loss recently might
    indicate that it is dry enough to paint now, even though it has only
    been maybe a week since I planed it down.

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  • From Michael@21:1/5 to Bob F on Sun Oct 22 14:36:35 2023
    On Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 3:50:23 PM UTC-5, Bob F wrote:
    I bought a 5/6" x 4" ceder fence board for a spacer on hinge for a pump cover, not thinking that it was green wood. I used my jointer to smooth
    the surface and reduce it to the 3/8" thickness I needed. In that
    process, I realized that the wood was very wet.

    Doing some online research, the most frequent opinion seemed to be to
    allow 4-5 weeks fence boards to dry before painting. I put the board in
    my furnace room, which my gas water heater keeps quite warm. A day or so later, I thought to weigh the board with my kitchen scale at 562g. A few days later, it weighed 499g. a few days later it was down to around 482g
    and seems to be about the same now, a couple of days after that.

    I now am wondering if the lack of more weight loss recently might
    indicate that it is dry enough to paint now, even though it has only
    been maybe a week since I planed it down.

    Kilns also require air movement. The desert is a good example. Heat + wind = really dry wood.

    If you have access to a moisture meter, that would be ideal. I wonder if you could take the board to a mill and ask for a measurement. You want it below 15 percent or so.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)