Stabilized wood still soft

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MRDucks2

MRDucks2

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Have stabilized several blanks with success using cactus juice. Have just completed by first batch of completely worthless wood, all soft and pinky.

On completion , I find very mixed results. On some wood, it is solid in some areas and anywhere from finger nail mark soft to finger gouge it out soft on the same wood. Other pieces, mostly soft.

Same juice, vac, soak, oven, etc. as before. Just much softer wood to start (and end) with. What am I missing?


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Not sure . Always will be some variation , but that is a bit extreme . Was it completely dry ? Had all bubbling stopped when the vacuum was removed ? Kind of wood ? Partly bark ? (Bark generally doesn`t stabilize well .) Did more of the juice run out of the softer pieces during cooking ? ( Thin cross sections may drain out more and be a bit softer as a result .)
 
It's my understanding that the stabilizing resin just fills the empty spaces in the wood. The remaining wood is still there with it's strength or lack of strength. Some will soak into the wood fibers but most just fills the space that use to be air binding the wood together better. The left behind wood should still have the same properties. I've noticed this on Black Palm. It has much more resistance to breaking and chipping when stabilized. It holds together better, but the properties of the wood parts haven't really changed.

Danny
 
This was sponge soft maple, no large voids. It was dyed juice so that shows where the dye was left behind, which makes me think juice was there.

Took it out of the oven, checked and put it back under vacuum in the juice. Should have new info this afternoon.


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If you cooked after the soak you won't get a better result because you would have already created the catalytic affect. My first guess is maybe the juice.got contaminated or is older? Sometimes temps affect life and hardness of the final blank. Bad juice will be much soft and not set nearly as solid but more like gellatin
 
Will check the dates. The juice is in various containers but I have the original. This is a mix of colors to create a different color mix, all from the same original container.


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The second vacuum drew bubbles for about 30 minutes. Let soak for a couple of hours and cooked again for 3 hours. No real change. More juice present but still not solid. Guess I'll throw that batch away. I will experiment with some of the other, unblinded colors later in the week.

I have noticed with this overall batch that some of it seems to work well and others don't. Main jug has no date. Will check other blanks and see if differences were color specific.

Good thing is trying to make worthless wood less worthless and not succeed means you end up back where you started. Except I now have purple worthless wood. Lol.


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MRDucks2 said:
The second vacuum drew bubbles for about 30 minutes. Let soak for a couple of hours and cooked again for 3 hours. No real change. More juice present but still not solid.
Click to expand...

Try running vacuum for longer. Much longer. 30 minutes is an extremely short vacuum time. With fully dried wood, the shortest vacuum time I've ever had before the bubbles have stopped with any wood I've done has been 10 hours. One would think that spalted woods would release their air faster, but my experience has been that is not always the case.

Try extending your vacuum time. My average vacuum times range from 12 to 24 hours, then soak for at least twice as long as vacuum time before curing.

When I'm working on double dyeing blanks, where I don't want to pull out all the air and only have the material partially submerged because I don't want to saturate the whole block with one color, I will run vacuum for 5 to 30 minutes. 30 minutes just isn't enough time for a full vacuum cycle to get all the air out. If you're impatient and don't want to try 12 or 24 hours, even try 6. You will no doubt notice a big difference.


One other thing - how dry was the wood before you started? Did you bake it at a temp of at least 220F for 24 hours, then start weighing it every few hours after that, and stop drying it once it has stopped loosing weight for 2 measurements in a row to ensure it has 0% moisture? Having moisture in the wood also create issues. And extends the time under vacuum because then you're waiting for the vacuum to vacuum dry the wood and pull that moisture out too, which isn't good for the process.
 
Thanks, Matthew. Lots of good info. 30 minutes was the second time under vacuum. The first time was probably 7 hours before no more bubbles, didn't really time. Soaked in juice 24 hours. Baked the wood just under 200 for 2+ hours. Juice spots on bottom hard and some spots in wood, but mostly still soft though colored through.

Decided if still soft, why not pull vacuum again and see if it takes more juice. That was the 30 minutes. No change on second round.

This is a small amount of juice. I will try some of the other batches/colors before tossing.


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Mike, let us know how it goes. I'll check back in here and, if you're still having issues, I'll be happy to try and help any way I can.

BTW, what species of wood is giving you the issue? There are some woods that just don't take up resin very well. And some woods where parts of it will soak up well, and then some parts that don't.
 
This was silver maple that was all punky wood. No big holes or bacterial rot still present, just spongy.

Figured it would have good character if I could stabilize it then cast it with some Alumilite. I'll keep everyone posted. On the road for a couple of days, then I'll be back.


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More4dan said:
It's my understanding that the stabilizing resin just fills the empty spaces in the wood. The remaining wood is still there with it's strength or lack of strength. Some will soak into the wood fibers but most just fills the space that use to be air binding the wood together better. The left behind wood should still have the same properties. I've noticed this on Black Palm. It has much more resistance to breaking and chipping when stabilized. It holds together better, but the properties of the wood parts haven't really changed.

Danny
Click to expand...

"empty spaces" include microscopic voids in the cellular structure. Done right there should be no softness.
 
Alright, here are the answers. Took a different color, different container of the same overall batch of juice. Using same pieces, vacuumed for a day, soaked for a day, picked up deep blue and soaked with juice.

Cooked for about 4 hours at 200 and... same overall results. Wood not a different color but still fingernail soft and can be dug apart easily.

Performed the shot glass of cooked resin test for an hour and end up crumbly rubber. Appears this batch is shot. It is in various smaller containers of color so not worth saving. Will try some new.

It seemed the wood took the juice well but was as if the juice simply cooked away for the most part when heated. And now I know. It was good a month to six weeks ago.


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I'm pretty sure I've seen the crumbly rubbery cured resin. Seems like it happens to me more with juice that has been reused with oily woods and/or squeeze out from oily woods. For me it has just been the squeeze out, the blanks themselves were rock hard. Possibly interefence from the dye, or maybe wood resins from a previous batch. Last thought - are you storing juice in glass containers? I think the inhibitor in the juice needs oxygen to work, so breathable container is better for long term storage (not certain on this one though).
 
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