Pre-drill before stabilizing?

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Ray-CA

Ray-CA

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Nov 14, 2020
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I've been soaking predrilled blanks in wood hardener (allows the fluid to penetrate from two directions) for a while now. Just getting into stabilizing and was wondering if pre-drilling the blanks would make any difference?

Thanks

Ray
 
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If you are not sure you will get full penetration drilling an undersized hole just to allow resin penetration would be helpful. Otherwise it would just be unneeded extra work.
 
Although I haven't tried it I've thought about it. My first thought is that it would allow for better penetration. But I do know that a lot of the blanks will warp a bit after stabilizing. Knowing that I was worried about how the redrilling process would go.
 
No redrilling holes for me .. too much friction .
All resistance produces friction/HEAT
 
I'm fairly new at stabilizing, but I would be wary about pre-drilling because sometimes the blanks warp a little after baking. In those cases, you might end up with a warped hole that would be difficult to fix by re-drilling. Potentially ruining the blank for better penetration is not a risk I'd want to take.
 
While warping is a real possibility, the way to overcome this is to use an undersized bit such as 1/4".

IF the blank is NOT green, and is dry, it will probably not warp much at all. There were a few times in the past that I tried it and it worked OK.
 
Warping when drying is not going to be your problem. If theres enough moisture in the wood for it to warp when curing the stabilized wood you will not get good results. Any moisture left in the wood before stabilizing will steam out during the cure and drive the resin out with it.
Wood should be dried thoroughly before stabilizing and stored in a ziplock until its put in the tank. Thats best done by baking the blanks for a few hours, cooling it before you drop it into the juice.
So drilling before hand would be done on an already warped blank.
 
I did some experimenting with this some time ago and found it not to be worthwhile. No noticeable advantage and only led to extra work. This was using CJ and standard practices.
 
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