Hi, I dry my wood blanks at 220 degrees until moisture meter reads 0 and dye without vacuum. I then put into oven @ 195 degrees for 3+ hours. Last night after 3+ hours I took the blanks out and put into plastic bags. This before the second dying I checked the moisture content and it was @ 10 -14 %. I put back in the oven and did not get much reduction in moisture. Am I reading the moisture content of the Cactus juice? I am a newbie at this, but there always bleed-out and is there a way to
You are always going to get some bleed out. That is just part of the process and nothing you can do to eliminate it. Drying your wood and making sure your oven temperature is truly at 190-200° F verified with an oven thermometer in the oven will reduce the bleed out but not eliminate it. As for the question on the moisture meter...you need to forget about the meter for stabilizing. Moisture meters send an electrical current between the pins and measures the amount of electrical resistance in a piece of wood. The higher the moisture, the less resistance. However, a typical pin meter is factory calibrated to the specific gravity of Douglas Fir. In order to get an accurate reading, you need to correct the meter reading for the species you are working with. Your meter manufacturer should have a chart with conversion factors. One other point, no moisture meter is accurate below 5% moisture content. For stabilizing, we really want to be closer to 0% so your meter is pointless as it is not going to give you any usable data! Also, I do not know how Cactus Juice affects the resistance of the electrical current put out by the meter but would guess it will give you a high moisture content reading that has nothing to do with the moisture content in the wood!