Unloaded 1000 sf of Wenge yesterday. The company we bought it from says it is between 6-8 percent moisture content. It comes in shrink wrapped bundles. The heat has been in the house so the temp. is pretty much stabilized so I’m wondering if I need to open the bundles to acclimate the wood or not. I’m thinking of just slicing the wrap as opposed to removing the wood completely. Weight on this load was 3500 lbs and it came in a tractor-trailer from Rare Earth Hardwoods in Flanders NJ. What say ye ol wise ones.
Wayne
Replies
I say take the time to slice the stuff up and sell it piece by piece to cabinet shops & the woodworkers.
There's some work involved but you might make a pretty penny.
I would shag the boundles around a bit to roughly the areas, but out of the way, and completely remove the shrink wrap. give a good week to acclimate before laying. just because the company says it's 6-8 does'nt make it so. Unless you check top and center pcs. with a moisture meter. Don't know where you live, but, if you live in central Fla., like me, the ambieant MC in house would be different from say Az.
Roger
P.S. I would also set up and exhaust fan when cutting. Although Wenge dust never bothered me, it smells like musty old dirt when cutting or maching.
Absolutely unwrap to properly acclimatize.
May have been KD to 6-8%, lord knows when. Then sat in an open air warehouse in some West African port for 3 months, then in the hold of container ship that crossed the Atlantic, then sat in another warehouse on the Jersey side for another 4 weeks.
Shrink wrapped or not, that stuff has picked up a few molecules of water vapor along the way.
If it's pre-finished, opening up the packages may expose the stock to humidity. Acclimation is a hold over idea from when unfinished hardwoods of questionable moisture content were used. A moisture meter is indispensable in assessing moisture content. Judgments should be made in accordance with the reading.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
I would meter the flooring material and the subfloor and make sure they are within a few percentage points of each other. You also need to make sure the RH of the jobsite is average. Last batch of prefinished hardwood I received was stated by the distributor to be 8% but was actually 5%, and it takes a long time for prefinished to acclimate. How wide is your material?
I checked the wood this morning with a moisture meter and the needle wouldn't move. My meter stsrts at 10 percent. It's 4" wide and varying length's. I figured it up and came up with 720 sf. Archi brought in the revised floor plans and said they had cut out some of the areas cause of cost.
I've got to come up with some kind of dust collection for cutting this stuff. I did the handrail in wenge and it's not to nasal friendly. Any one know where I can get a switch that turns on a shop vac when I switch on my miter saw?
A meter that starts at 10% isn't useful for finish work.
Oh ya I'm in NW Ohio. And yes David I know but it's all I got. I should check on a better one. Thanks.:)
Vote for unwrap
Check out lignomat meters. Work well, reasonably priced.
Sears used to, at least, carry tool actuated outlets. Actually, think Rockler might too. Better yet, use this job as the excuse to invest in Festool. Real trucks dont have sparkplugs