First stabilization attempt

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Live2Dive

Live2Dive

Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2010
Messages
123
Location
Littleton, CO
Hey everyone. This is my first attempt at stabilizing wood. I have a ton of redwood burl and buckeye burl that needs to be stabilized. I bought some Cactus Juice and gave it a go. Here a few shots of what the result was.

1_PA160004.jpg

1_PA160005.jpg


Now, when I run them through my vacuum they absorbed a good deal of the cactus juice. I pulled them from the vacuum chamber and wrapped them in foil and tossed them into my toaster oven at 200 degrees for 45 minutes. After they cooled a bit, I unwrapped them and it looks like most of the 'juice' leached out and hardened on the outside of the blanks.

After letting one cool to room temp, I drilled and glued in a tube. When I went to square up the ends, the end just blew up. I even started my drill slow. Upon closer look, (and feel) it looks like the pen blank is dry, almost as if all the juice drained away. I can even press my thumb nail into the wood, it is so dry.

1_PA160013.jpg


Has this happened to anyone else?
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Was this on the redwood burl or the buckeye burl. I have talked to a fellow that does professional stabilization and he says redwood burl just does not stabilize well.

That said, some of the Cactus Juice is going to leach out to the surface. That is just part of it. What temp was your toaster oven actually running at? Do not trust the dial, they are notoriously inaccurate. Most of the time, I have found that the temp is quite a bit higher than shown on the dial. If you cure higher than 200°F, you will get more juice that comes out of the blank before it polymerizes. Double check your toaster oven temp with an oven thermometer if you have not already done so.

Another thing to check...how long did you let the blanks "equalize" once removed from the vacuum? It is best to let them sit and let the pressures stabilize for about an hour before curing. Also, what kind of vacuum were you generating and what is your elevation above sea level?
 
SO MANY QUESTIONS! lol

I had 12 redwood burl and 2 of the buckeye. I have yet to cut into a buckeye to see what they look like. Lets see, the temp was at 200. I did not verify this. My toaster oven can go down to 150 and as high as 375.

I removed them from the vacuum and started wrapping within 20 minutes. I am at about 5600 feet, and I do not have a pressure gauge on my chamber. When I ran the vacuum, a ton of the bubbles come up, as in your youtube video. I probably ran the vacuum for about an hour, until no more bubbles were coming off. For the 14 blanks I stabilized, I would say almost 10 oz's was gone, but I would guess that a lot of that leached out as they heated.
 
What kind of vacuum pump are you using? If it is a rotary vane pump, then you most likely were generating 24" Hg which is pretty close to the maximum you will get at your elevation. If it was a diaphragm pump, then you may have only been getting 20" Hg which is not ideal but will work.

Double check your toaster oven. I have one that when it is on 200, the actual temp inside is 255°F. The higher them temp, the more resin will come out of the blank. It will not affect the resin but it will cause more to come out before polymerization. In discussing this with a physicist friend, it is believed that because the resin takes 5 minutes to cure between 178-205° F that you are above 205 before the resin polymerizes. As with any resin, the viscosity goes down the hotter it gets which lets more of the resin "leak" out of the wood.

That said, your pictures do not look too bad. You will always have some resin that leaks out of the blank. That is just the way it is, unless you can cure the blanks under pressure in something like an autoclave.

Try the buckeye burl and report back on how it feels. Like I said, I have heard the redwood burl is difficult to stabilize. I would guess it has something to do with the cellular structure since it is a softwood and thus different than hardwoods. Here is a pretty good lecture presented on the cellular differences between hardwood and softwood and may give better insight into why the redwood is hard to stabilize.
http://www.faculty.sfasu.edu/mcbroommatth/Lectures/Wood_Science/Lecture_5_Hardwood_Structure.PDF

Also, if you did 14 blanks and only use 10 ounces of resin, that is a little low from my experiments. I am usually seeing between 1.5-2 ounces of resin per blank. Again, this may be due to the redwood not picking up enough resin.

Live2Dive said:
SO MANY QUESTIONS! lol

I had 12 redwood burl and 2 of the buckeye. I have yet to cut into a buckeye to see what they look like. Lets see, the temp was at 200. I did not verify this. My toaster oven can go down to 150 and as high as 375.

I removed them from the vacuum and started wrapping within 20 minutes. I am at about 5600 feet, and I do not have a pressure gauge on my chamber. When I ran the vacuum, a ton of the bubbles come up, as in your youtube video. I probably ran the vacuum for about an hour, until no more bubbles were coming off. For the 14 blanks I stabilized, I would say almost 10 oz's was gone, but I would guess that a lot of that leached out as they heated.
Click to expand...
 
Well, I gave the Buckeye a go. No blowout, but it also lost it's hold on the juice. I would bet it is the temp thing. I've got enough juice left to try a half dozen blanks or so, and then I am done. I thought I would give it the 'ol college effort, but too many variables for the end results. Unfortunately a costly experiment.

On a side track to this same topic, anyone on the forums that is good at stabilizing and want to work out a trade of sorts? I've got about 80 blanks of Buckeye Burl and Redwood Burl. I'll give blanks to someone that can stabilize them and ship some back to me. You can keep the rest... :) PM me!
 
OHHHMAN. Can't do Redwood? I have a bunch sitting here waiting for the Juice that I just ordered.......... Oh well I also havea bunch of Hickory, Maple, Buckeye and more so the Redwood with just have to get a CA bath during turning.
 
Dagnabbit, Curtis! I was NOT asking for that! I was just disappointed with my effort here. YOU, are the pinnacle of what customer service is all about.
 
Lots of variations here with the CJ for sure.

There is a list of must have things required as I see it and Curtis can correct me if I am wrong.
1. Vacuum Pump that will pull down to at least 27" Hg.....more is always better.
2. Vacuum Gauge....you better know what your pulling down to.
3. The Vacuum Chamber/Pot.
4. Oven
5. Oven thermometer...know what your really cooking them too.
6. Weigh Scale....measure and record everything you do the first time. (wood, CJ and anything else in your equation.) I measure in grams.....force of habit from casting.
7. Timer
8. Log Book.....keep track of everything you do. This will become your biggest resource tool down the road.

Let me expand a little on the weigh scale. I record the weight of the blanks individually(pre-vacuum, post vacuum, post cooking and after scrapping off the CJ bleed out). I also weigh the CJ before and after vacuum. I know....there is a lot of weighing, but this is for understanding exactly what I am achieving or not achieving. Each species of wood has it's own possibilities and related species (i.e. density) can easily be determined as to their outcome.

The thermometer results should also be monitored closely. Cooking different size blanks is no different than cooking a large roast versus a small roast in your kitchen oven. The bigger the roast.....you know what I mean?

The timer.....see the thermometer!

Here's some food for thought about the stabilizing process with vacuum. The wood acts much like a sponge or a balloon in most respects. As you draw the vacuum down the air within is drawn out of the wood. Since the grain structure of the wood prevents itself from collapsing, the CJ displaces the air within, both at the time of vacuum and at the time the vacuum is removed. Now we have a blank of wood that is saturated in CJ and the weight has increased quite a bit. When the blank is placed in the oven for cooking, the CJ becomes lower in viscosity and flows more readily, both deeper into the wood and out of the wood. Hence to much heat and we get a bleed out of CJ.

Back to the kitchen again because there is something going on that some of us may have forgotten about. The roast cooks from the outside in. So here's a little tip to try out......what if the roast had a small hole through the center of it? Two things as I see it....the vacuum process would become more efficient and the cooking process would also allow the inner surface of the hole to heat up sooner. No?

Throw some dye into the equation and the results will also be quite different. Penetration from within and from the outside of the blank will be better. Hardwoods will also have a better success rate of both colouring and stabilization. Now through the casting process into the equation and again the results are even greater.

I have done a few small bowls now and the possibilities are starting to become endless. All Thanks to Curtis....:)

Just my 2 cents from trial, error and a few phone calls to Curtis.

Dave
 
Last edited:
I would like to vouch for the Toster Oven Temp. I have one from a thrift store and just turned it on since I just got my juice in. I placed the Thermostat at 175 and placed my Temp lead going back to my Fluke Meter in there. 5 Mins later 284 Degrees How did that happen? Got it cut to 150 to see where that gets me. So there is a really good chance you were running hot in there.
 
When you stabilize a blank does it lose its natural color. I know it will if you dye it. But I mean just regular cj
 
I believe it will darken it some but I have yet to stabilize, maybe give it more of a wet look. Going to do a piece of Hickory later and will let you know.
 
Justturnin said:
I placed the Thermostat at 175 and placed my Temp lead going back to my Fluke Meter in there. 5 Mins later 284 Degrees
Click to expand...

Okay, confession time. I bought a used toaster oven too, and put some blanks in to cure -- figured about a hundred degrees ought to be good. A half hour later, couldn't understand why I was smelling a slight smoky odor. Turns out it's a canuck version of oven, and I had it set to 100 Celsius. The Fahrenheit is in tiny little numbers under the Celsius. Duuuuu!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom