going to try some stabilizing, with your help!

[Jimbo.]

Hello everyone, I have found a lump of drift wood on the beach which I want to make some pens out of, I have bandsawn it into 3/4" x 3/4" x 6" blanks and sat them drying in a cool place for nearly three weeks, the blanks feel really soft like they are a bit rotten, I have bought some Ronseal wet rot stuff to stabilise it,

Homebase - Ronseal Wet Rot Wood Hardener - Clear - 500ml customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

Now my questions! Can I use this in a pressure pot because I do not have a vacuum chamber, I have read lots on vacuum stabilizing but not very much on pressure stabilizing,

If so what sort of pressure do I need?

How long should I leave the blanks for?

The wood looks a little bit like pine to me, not sure it is and I have left them at work so I can't take a picture! I'll take one tomorrow

 

[MesquiteMan]

Pressure alone is not going to do much more for you than just soaking the wood at atmosphere. When stabilizing, the use of vacuum is to remove the air inside the wood and then, when the vacuum is released. atmospheric pressure together with the lower pressure inside the wood takes over and sucks the material in. If you use pressure, you will simply compress the air inside the wood and as soon as you release the pressure, the air will decompress and push the material back out of the wood.

I did some controlled testing a while back with a set of blanks just soaking, one set with pressure, and one set with vacuum. The soaked blanks and pressure blanks had very similar % weight gain (resin uptake). Of course the vacuum blanks were much higher as expected.

I would just put your blanks in a container and weigh them down and submerge them with you fluid. Then let the soak for a week or so and you should do a fair job.

 

[RMayoIII]

There is also a tutorial in the library that shows how to make your pressure pot into a vac chamber. I haven't tried it but it looks promising. Curtis's chamber is well worth the money and the wait if you plan on making a habit out of stabilizing.

 

[MesquiteMan]

I would be real hesitant about pulling a vacuum on the material you mention. I have looked it up in the past and if I recall correctly, it is basically the same as Minwax Wood Hardener here in the US. The problem is that it is about 72% acetone and will boil under even low vacuum. This means that you will be boiling off the acetone and the exhaust will be highly flammable acetone vapor!

 

[Jimbo.]

These are my blanks, not sure about the wood, I did look in the library for something on pressure stabilizing but I could only find vacuum info

 

[Jimbo.]

The blanks are now just soaking in the Ronseal wet rot, I will see what they are like in a week or so, they are weighed down now but when they are full the shouldn't float any more, is this correct?

 

[Jim Burr]

Not always. They may still float based on the specific graviy of the solution. Wet rot is about 30% solids so that's what will be left in the blank when the carrier evaporates out. Not quite enough to weigh it down.