Am Freitag, 14. August 2020 15:57:53 UTC+2 schrieb pyotr filipivich:
I placed the block (cube with a 60 mm side length) in a sandwich box filled with ink for 16 days. The block was held under the surface using a small chunk of foam. I turned the block over every four days, so it had four days with each end-grain surface at the bottom, and four days with each of two opposing cross-grain surfaces at the bottom.
If I remember correctly (I don't have the paper in front of me), the moisture content was 13% before the experiment. Afterwards it was off the scale, as you might expect, and the wood had absorbed about 25 grams of ink. It took about a week until the weight returned to its original value (about 85 grams) and the remaining dye didn't seem to affect this figure.
I'm planning to repeat the experiment (probably with water rather than ink), but coat some surfaces of the blocks with two-component epoxy paint, to determine the proportions of the water absorbed through the end-grain and cross-grain surfaces. I might also try the same with some blocks of okan instead of pine, but I suspect this will absorb very little water.