Drying a "green" ceder fence board for painting.

Oct 22, 2023 1 Replies

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.

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