Vacuum times?

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Mar 7, 2017
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6
Location
University Place, WA
So I'm new to stabilizing wood and have done two rounds so far with different species of wood and wondered what the average times are under vacuum before bubbles stop forming? I started with some redwood burl (yes I know everyone says they can't be stabilized) and they were still giving up bubbles 4 hours under vacuum. Today I stuck some myrtle, big leaf maple and a boxwood burl blank in and they are still bubbling after two hours under vacuum. I read a lot about stabilizing and watched numerous youtube videos and all of them say they leave them for 30 minutes to an hour before pulling them from vacuum. I left the redwood burl in vacuum for almot 6 hours then let them sit in the stabilizer resin over night under ambient pressure and they came out great. How are people getting full stabilization off an hour or less of vacuum? my pump holds 29-30 Hg due to me being at sea level so I know it;s not a lack of vacuum. Is this normal and I shouldn't worry too much about the time it takes or is there some trick to speeding up the vacuum process?
 
I am new to stabilizing but I here how ever long it takes to get all the bubbles out you should at least soak them for that amount. So if it take 3 hours to under vacuum they should soak for 3 hours.
 
I've only stabilized pine cones & sweet gum pods so far, but with both of them mixed together it took 5 hours. Sometimes air gets trapped in the bottom so vibrating the chamber a little (not shaking it, just a gentle vibrating type motion) will release that air. When I did that the bubbles stopped within a few minutes. I probably could have shaved quite a bit of time off, maybe even a few hours, if I did that earlier.
 
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