When is wood to dry?

[burnie]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this question. Anyway,  I recieved a big lot of wood yesterday from a friend.  Lots of Ash, cherry, red/white oak, hickory, zebra, paducha, purple heart, and a lot of small exotics.  All of these are from Kiln wood that has been setting in his shop.  How can I tell if a board is too dry to make a bow with.  Some of the pieces have dried and cracked. Those are obvious, but all the rest looks great and a lot of the wood has great grain for lams and board bows.

[Tree man]

Get a moisture meter-that is the bets option-skip the cheap models with pin probes-they are fine for checking raw lumber but if you want to build wooden bows you'll want the electronic non damaging type. A cheaper option is to store the stuff in a controlled environment at 50% humidity for several months.---8-9% moisture content is good for most woods. Hickory can stand 6%(and it takes a long time in low humidity to get it there)Below 5% is dangerous-over 12% will be safe but performance will suffer. At 50% ambient humidity wood will tend to stabilize  at 8-9% moisture content.

[burnie]

Thanks Tree man.  I can controle humidity pretty easy.  Ill go that rout until I get a moister meter.  Ill just make a simple sycrometer to put in with the wood to calculate relative humidity for the time being.  Ive been building laminate bows, and plan on useing this wood for lams, no self bows.  I guess ill put them up and keep them at 50% humidity and get back to that wood later.  It will be a while till I dig into these boards.  Ive got two bows to finish right now and not enough time.  Broke my tiller tree last night moving my hotbox, so I guess thats what ill be doing tonight, building a new tiller board.  Too much to do, to little time.