Cactus Juice - oily residue?

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
egnald

egnald

Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2017
Messages
3,765
Location
Columbus, Nebraska, USA
Greetings from Nebraska,

I have a question for the experts at Cactus Juice stabilization. I just took my first batch of blanks (quantity 10) out of the toaster oven. I put them on a metal rack but didn't wrap them in foil. The collection pan under the rack wound up with some hardened bits of Cactus Juice drippings as expected; however, there is also an oily type of residue along with them that feels like and smells like, well, Cactus Juice. Is that normal or did I do something wrong? I had them in the cure oven at 200 to 210 degrees for about 6 hours.

Regards,
Dave

Cactus Juice Residue.jpg
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
David,

Looking at that tray, I see a lot more liquid than I would expect, not so surprised of the set CJ but that still tells me something and that is, for 10 pen blanks of the 2 woods you used there is far too much waste in that tray and to me, it can mean 2 things, the wood had moisture and the CJ simply boiled out of the wood as the blanks got hotter, or, you let the wood oversaturate which has happened to me a few times and you didn't allow sufficient "dripping" time (I like an overnight drip) where the wood soaks more CJ than what it can contain as it gets hotter in the oven the wood expel all the excess.

There are 2 negatives of this, the first is that you are wasting expensive CJ and because you didn't wrap the wood in foil, the probabilities of CJ dripping into a hot element and ignite are very real (it happened to me, once) a very good reason to get the fireball Curtis sells and put it on top of the oven or making sure you have a fire extinguisher handy and never leave the oven unattended particularly if the wood is not wrapped in foil in such a way that will contain any CJ excess from escaping the "parcel".

As an extra observation, woods that are oily do not stabilise well, unless the natural oils are crystalised with heat prior to stabilising so, the perception that some folks have where they believe if a wood is oily the oils will drip off the wood as it gets cooked, that is indeed not the case, if you soak a piece of wood in oil and then try to stabilise it, first the wood won't soak the CJ and is it get's cured in the oven, the oil will expel the CJ forming lots of bubbles, similar to if the wood was wet.

My suggestions to you are, follow the advice in steps and times as Curtis describes in his "instruction" make sure to allow the wood to drip well before curing, use foil paper to cover the bottom tray making sure nothing drips to the hot elements. Wrap your wood in foil sealing it well, not using foil, won't accelerate the curing process or offer any considerable improvement, unless you are stabilising wood that is full of cracks, crevasses and small holes that you want to cast afterwards, allowing the CJ from dripping away from the wood will prevent those small crevasses from getting blocked with CJ and prevent the resin to penetrate. The normal CJ curing process is 90°Celsius for 90 minutes, you won't get any better results from letting the wood overcook saving you a few bucks in power not used.

Hope this makes sense.

Cheers
George
 
I agree with what George has posted above. The longest I've ever let my blanks sit in the oven after stabilizing is 2 hours. I check it pretty often and I always wrap the blanks in foil. I also went to the dollar store and bought their small cookie sheet type trays that I put under the blanks to catch anything that might drip out. I'm thinking by not wrapping the blanks in foil might have caused your problem. Did the blanks feel oily after you had them in the oven? Was it on both species of wood? I've never had a problem with Redwood other than how long it takes for the bubbles to stop during vacuuming.
 
Thanks to everyone for the input.

My guess at this point is that I did both soak them too long and did not let them drip out long enough before putting them in the oven. I have a second batch that is dripping out right now. I am planning on wrapping them in foil and lining my oven "drip tray" with foil to catch anything that leaks out as suggested.

I have a fresh bottle of CJ on order for delivery next Wednesday, so I will do another small batch with fresh materials and will follow the recommendations related to soak time following vacuum, drip time, wrapping, and drip time.

Dave
 
Dave:
Just like George said you have to them drip out before wrapping with foil. 90 degree in celsius is 194 degree Fahrenheit which is what I do with my oven , I set my oven to 200 and the temp swing is about 10 degrees which works out for both Redwood and Walnut. Now I can say with redwood burl it some times take lot more time to get CJ to perform. I will put the bare blanks in oven and cook for hour or so at 120 degrees to insure the moister is down to 7% or less.
Then start the stabilizing process. I do is stabilize under vac until bubbles stop. Take off vac and let them soak over night, restart the vac to insure all the bubbles are gone. Then let them drip ,turn them 180 and let them drip more. Redwood burl seem to be much harder to get stabilized. This is the process I use for 3/4x3/4x6 inch blanks.

Good luck on you next try.
 
I you question whether your CJ is beyond its shelf life, check web site. Curtis describes a simple test to evaluate a small quantity of the "Juice" to see if it is still useable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom