Question on stabilizing--Drilling before soaking?

[jbswearingen]

I think this has been asked before, but I cannot find it. I very rarely turn wood anymore because I'm tired of it moving and cracking the CA finish. It doesn't happen often, but it *does* happen. I'm thinking that stabilizing might help with this.

So, I'm wondering about drilling a blank for the tube BEFORE soaking (under vacuum). Will this help to ensure that the wood closest to the tube (the most important part) is thoroughly impregnated with the resin? I imagine you'd have to carefully redrill to remove any resin that pools inside the blank while baking.

Your thoughts?

 

[gbpens]

Stabilizing a drilled blank will insure the inner portion if the wood is stabilized but you might run into problems drilling a punky wood to start with. Also, after stabilizing you will have to clean up the hole by re-drilling. A sharp drill bit is the best insurance against cracking which is usually a function of force applied and heat build up.

 

[ElMostro]

If the wood is punky and you can pull a full vacuum there should be no need to drill BUT drilling the blank will make the solution penetrate the the blank from two directions if you have a wek pump or are just soaking the blanks. Also have in mind that the heat use when you cure the blank may cause some distortion and the tube may not fit in the original hole. If you want to drill to get better penetration drill a smaller hole...1/4" maybe...this will give the solution a way to get inside the blank and then after you cure the blank re-drill the hole to the correct size.

 

[frank123]

Should be able to just hook a vacuum hose up to the end of the drilled hole and plug the other then put it under whatever liquid you're using and suck it in.

Haven't actually done this, but have heard of it being done to stabilize some woods for knife scale making on some knife making forums. Wouldn't hurt to try using some scarp wood, it wouldn't be hard to try it out.

 

[triw51]

Would it work better if you drilled the hole undersized then redrilled it the correct size after stablizing? Just a though I don't have my vacuum set yet so am courious.

 

[MesquiteMan]

Drilling a hole will not make a difference in penetration when using vacuum assuming you are using a heat cured resin. It may reduce the amount of processing time under vacuum but it will not make a difference in saturation.

 

[jbswearingen]

Thanks, Curtis. It's your product that I'll start using when I get to that stage of pen turning.