Moisture determinations are made for each of the three portions separately.
The procedure is as follows: (1) Immediately after sawing, loose splinters are removed and each section is weighed.
(2) The material is put into a drying oven at 100 deg.

C.( 212 deg.

F.) and dried until the variation in weight for a period of twenty-four hours is less than 0.5 per cent.
(3) The disk is again carefully weighed.
(4) The loss in weight expressed in per cent of the dry weight indicates the moisture content of the specimen from which the specimen was cut.
MACHINE FOR STATIC TESTS The standard screw machines used for metal tests are also used for wood, but in the case of wood tests the readings must be taken "on the fly," and the machine operated at a uniform speed without interruption from beginning to end of the test.

This is on account of the time factor in the strength of wood.

(See SPEED OF TESTING MACHINE, below.) The standard machines for static tests can be used for transverse bending, compression, tension, shear, and cleavage.