Playing with Cactus Juice

[Monty]

Last week I played around with dying and stabilizing a few 3/4"-7/8" maple pen blanks with Cactus Juice. I added about 100 drops of green dye that I get from Alumilite to about a quart of Cactus Juice. Pulled a vacuum of greater than 29" for 4 hours and they were still bubbling a little. I shut the vacuum off and let them set for about 15 minutes before I released the vacuum which allowed the dye and juice to infiltrate the blanks. The blanks were then baked at just over 200* for about 1-1/2 hours. After turning the blanks, this is what I got.
The one on the far left is a piece of maple burl, the middle one is ambrosia maple, and the one on the right is a piece of maple I received about 2 weeks ago.
Thought it was interesting the dye didn't take where the tracks were in the ambrosia maple.
This week I tried to see if I could get a deeper green if I added more dye, so I took about a pint of the juice I used in the above and added another 100 drops of green dye. This would be about the equivalent of 300 drops per quart. When I rough turned a blank from this batch and compared to another blanks from the previous batch, I couldn't tell much difference. I'll get these two new planks made into a pen and finished this week and post a picture to show what, if any, difference the greater concentration made.

 

[Canadian_Kid]

I like the green burl one the best.

 

[hehndc]

Mannie:

I like them all, especially the jr. gent. You already may be doing this, but when I have done similar things, I read about drilling out the blank first. This gives the dye another way to penetrate the blank. The blank may have to be re-drilled after due to swelling.

Nice job.

Steve

 

[thewishman]

The ambrosia maple is awesome! Thanks for sharing the info.

 

[Justturnin]

Interesting that tripling the dye did not give a darker color. I have been leaning towards some Juice. Aside from the dye what are your thoughts on the resin itself? I have a good bit of spalted maple, hickory and various burls I would like to stabilize.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[MesquiteMan]

Mannie,

Green is a hard one to get nice and dark. Try adding even more dye and possibly a little black to the green to make it even darker. The harder the wood to begin with, the harder it is to get good, deep colors. Also, the bubbling you saw very well could have been boiling. Cactus Juice will boil at 80° F and 28.5" Hg here at my elevation of 1,000' ASL. A physicist friend of mine thinks the boiling may actually help with penetration since it will tend to disrupt the cells in the wood and allow more resin to penetrate. I usually pull full vacuum for a good while, then back it down to around 28" until the bubbles stop.

 

[jbswearingen]

Wow. That's really pretty! The ambrosia pen is my fave because of the "clear" line in it!

I can't wait to get into this aspect of pens.

 

[Monty]

Mannie:

I like them all, especially the jr. gent. You already may be doing this, but when I have done similar things, I read about drilling out the blank first. This gives the dye another way to penetrate the blank. The blank may have to be re-drilled after due to swelling.

Nice job.

Steve

I've read that too, but so far all have been solid blanks. Curtis has had success on complete penetration on large bowl blanks so I figured a pen blank should be no problem.

Mannie,

Green is a hard one to get nice and dark. Try adding even more dye and possibly a little black to the green to make it even darker. The harder the wood to begin with, the harder it is to get good, deep colors. Also, the bubbling you saw very well could have been boiling. Cactus Juice will boil at 80° F and 28.5" Hg here at my elevation of 1,000' ASL. A physicist friend of mine thinks the boiling may actually help with penetration since it will tend to disrupt the cells in the wood and allow more resin to penetrate. I usually pull full vacuum for a good while, then back it down to around 28" until the bubbles stop.

Of course I would be so lucky to pick the color that's hardest to work with.
I did realize that the harder and denser the wood, the less the penetration will be. The reason I chose maple to start with is I like maple for my Texas flag pens and if the maple I used for the star is undyed, the black from the rubberized CA bleeds into the pores and ruins the blank so I wanted to see if I could achieve complete penetration on a regular maple blank with Cactus Juice. I know you have achieved complete penetration, just wanted to make sure I could be successful also.
Now, on to other colors.

 

[sbell111]

One day, I'm going to post a rundown of my first experience using cactus juice. (It did admirably despite the fact that I screwed up at every, single step.)

 

[Sylvanite]

Pulled a vacuum of greater than 29" for 4 hours and they were still bubbling a little. I shut the vacuum off and let them set for about 15 minutes before I released the vacuum which allowed the dye and juice to infiltrate the blanks.

Be very careful about how long you leave the resin in the chamber. I let it soak for hours like you (except my chamber wouldn't hold vacuum very long) and the Cactus Juice eroded the corner welds, ruining the chamber. Curtis now includes a warning not to let the resin sit in the acrylic chamber for extended periods.

FWIW, I got more air extraction by cycling the vacuum rather than holding it (until my chamber died, anyway).

Regards,
Eric

 

[Monty]

Pulled a vacuum of greater than 29" for 4 hours and they were still bubbling a little. I shut the vacuum off and let them set for about 15 minutes before I released the vacuum which allowed the dye and juice to infiltrate the blanks.

Be very careful about how long you leave the resin in the chamber. I let it soak for hours like you (except my chamber wouldn't hold vacuum very long) and the Cactus Juice eroded the corner welds, ruining the chamber. Curtis now includes a warning not to let the resin sit in the acrylic chamber for extended periods.

FWIW, I got more air extraction by cycling the vacuum rather than holding it (until my chamber died, anyway).

Regards,
Eric

I'm not using one of Curtis' chambers. I have a seamless plastic one I use.

 

[MesquiteMan]

Be very careful about how long you leave the resin in the chamber. I let it soak for hours like you (except my chamber wouldn't hold vacuum very long) and the Cactus Juice eroded the corner welds, ruining the chamber. Curtis now includes a warning not to let the resin sit in the acrylic chamber for extended periods.

FWIW, I got more air extraction by cycling the vacuum rather than holding it (until my chamber died, anyway).

Regards,
Eric

My chambers are NOT designed to HOLD vacuum. They are designed to be used with the vac pump running to continually extract the air coming out of the blanks.

And yes, the Cactus Juice will damage the chamber if it stays in the chamber for extended periods of time. That is why my directions have always stated to allow them to soak for 30 minutes or so, then wash out the chamber with soap and water. I do now include a warning label on the chamber so folks realize this is not just a suggestion.

 

[MesquiteMan]

I'm not using one of Curtis' chambers. I have a seamless plastic one I use.

Mannie,

I would still be cautious with it. The Cactus Juice will also damage polycarbonate if allowed to stay in contact too long. Not sure about other plastics since I have only tested plexiglas and ploycarbonate.

 

[Monty]

I'm not using one of Curtis' chambers. I have a seamless plastic one I use.

Mannie,

I would still be cautious with it. The Cactus Juice will also damage polycarbonate if allowed to stay in contact too long. Not sure about other plastics since I have only tested plexiglas and ploycarbonate.

It's a food storage container.
It's not polycarbonate, it's softer, more like a polyethylene or polypropylene.

 

[NotURMailman]

Those are great! I like the semi-subdued green a lot.

 

[airborne_r6]

*moved to a more appropriate thread, sorry

 

[Bigj51]

The vacuum chamber I use is out of Aluminum with a 1" thick polycarbonate lid. It will hold vacuum without the pump running. I still don't pour the cactus juice directly into it though. I also use the food storage bins that I can soak the blanks for days or weeks without problems. I have problems with red dye. I get complete penetration only wind up with a pink blank! Now dark maple burl has been coming out darker red.

It is fun experimenting with the dyes and burl woods, 'cause you never know exactly what its going to look like untill it's turned! I have been stabilizing cholla cactus dyed black and then casting in in red alumilite. This has had the neatest results.

Have fun with your expirimenting!