How Does Moisture Affect Wood?
Everyone who works with wood needs to understand how wood interacts with moisture in the environment. Whether you’re a woodworker making cabinets, or a wood flooring professional…. installing hardwood floors, or if you use wood in construction, wood moisture content (MC) should be always on your mind…

Wood is hygroscopic. It gains or loses water moisture as the relative humidity (RH) of the surrounding air changes…

Moisture Meters
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These varying humidity levels of the surrounding air cause wood to not only gain or lose water moisture but to expand or shrink as well. As the humidity increases, the MC increases, causing the wood to expand. As the humidity decreases, the MC decreases, causing the wood to shrink. When the wood neither gains nor loses moisture, we say that the wood has reached its equilibrium moisture content (EMC)...

The moisture content of freshly cut wood is typically somewhere between 40-200%. If you’re wondering how wood can have a 200% moisture content, here’s how that works…

Because the moisture content of wood is equal to the weight of the water in the wood divided by the weight of the wood without the water, it’s possible for the moisture content to exceed 100%. In other words, the water weighs more than the wood fibres… It’s like magic

But How Dry Should Wood Be for Woodworking?

The acceptable wood moisture content normally ranges from 6% to 8% for woodworkers who build cabinets, fine furniture, musical instruments, decorative art, boat restoration, or various other wood products...

However, this range will vary slightly according to the geographic region because of varying Relative Humidity levels...

The normal moisture content of wood (or EMC) varies from 7%-19% depending on the RH in the air.

If an interior location has an average RH of 40-52%, wood placed there will have an average EMC of 8-9%. 

To avoid failure your project.. the rule of thumb aim for a moisture content of 8- 9% 

The best way to do this is to use an accurate moisture meter… I'll leave a link in the description for my recommendation...