Why wrap in foil when baking?

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mikespenturningz

mikespenturningz

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I have been using my vacuum chamber for about 3 or 4 weeks now and am into my second gallon of Cactus Juice. I have a small toaster oven that has a pan that hooks up under the rack. I am wondering what the purpose of the tin foil is when baking these blanks off. I can understand not wanting the Cactus Juice to fall onto the heating elements but in my case this is not an issue. Is there any other reason for using the tin foil? I seem to have pretty good luck just placing my blanks onto the rack!
 
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I would guess (I haven't used mine yet) that it would keep more of the cactus juice in the blanks. It wouldn't drain off, so to speak. JMHO.
 
Because Curtis' instructions are to use it.:biggrin: And, he is the resident expert on Cactus juice stabilizing. I too would think the reason is to keep the cactus juice from leaking out of the wood fibers before it has had time to harden.

I wondered "Why heat the blanks in my oven for a couple of hours?" It is 110 here in N texas and even hotter in my garage all day. My blanks must be good and dry. So I stabilized without first drying the blanks. I was surprised at how little the blank's weight increased. After talking with Curtis and understanding about "ambient humidity" the drying cycle made sense. I stabilized another set of blanks using the same wood species as I first used. The results were MUCH better and much more to what I expected them to be.

So, like drying the blanks prior to casting, there must be a reason to use the tin foil.

Do a good turn daily!
Don
 
At the very least it contains the mess. If the blanks release the juice and it spills out onto your try or even worse your heating element your could end up with a real problem. I just did some river birch and it picked up so much resin that during the heating process a lot leaked out and boy, talk about a potential mess if the foil did not catch it.
 
Don't get me wrong I am not saying we shouldn't use it. I am asking what the purpose is! If it is simply to contain the mess I have that covered with the pan that is under the rack. If it has more purpose it is likely that I don't have that covered and need to use it! Just asking..
 
I would be concerned, the bottom pan being closser to the eliment,stabiizer would burn or harden and build up.Don't know if Cactus juice is flamable.
 
It just hardens up and falls off into the trash! It doesn't lose all that much. I have been playing with double and triple stabilization to get more colors into the wood and you don't want the crusted on stuff for that it could impede the dyes from getting into the wood. I have 3 pens that are waiting for the glue to dry so I can see how triple dying worked? From the looks of the blank it did work but the proof is in the turning and finish product!
 
I'll let Curtis reply to this in detail, but in my experience, any hole in the foil results in it leaking out of the blank being stabilized. being wrapped well means the liquid form has nowhere to go. If un-wrapped, I should imagine the majority will run out before being turned solid.
 
The main reason is you dont want all the blanks in one big piece and try breaking them apart to separate them. The blanks will split if hit hard enough with a hammer. There is some resin that seeps out of the blank when in the oven before it has a chance to cure.

Have you stabilized a few blanks wrapped them up and once they cool down you can see and feel the hardened resin? If you didnt wrap them they will be sticking to themselves.
Yes the argument can be made you dont need to wrap them just space them have a drop pan ect but you can not to a lot of blanks. Personally its just easier to wrap them and I can get a lot more done at once. Plus if I have to I can stack the blanks wrapped up, if there is that many to do at once.
 
Wrapping them will help keep a little more resin in the blank. It is not a lot but it does help. I did testing on cure methods and did some wrapped and some unwrapped and found the wrapped blanks retained a little bit more weight. Also, as said above, it helps do more blanks at once and keeps things a little more tidy.
 
While not yet having used Cactus Juice, my experience with stabalizing has also been that some of the solution will seep out when toasting. My last batch wasn't wrapped well enough, and some did seep out (stunk the place up it did). The other times I've wrapped them it hasn't been that way and the blanks turned out better. These ones there is (on some of the batch) a coating of the cured solution on the exterior of the blank.
 
MesquiteMan said:
CharlesJohnson said:
I would be concerned, the bottom pan being closser to the eliment,stabiizer would burn or harden and build up.Don't know if Cactus juice is flamable.
Click to expand...

Cactus Juice is non-flammable.
Click to expand...

While we are talking about the Cactus Juice, which is sanding me broke (investment...!):frown:, the foil issue never was much of a problem to me as I wanted to save power by "cooking" as many blanks as possible in one go, with my great oven's capacity, set at 200°C and the timer on 90 minutes, I do about 100 pen blanks at one "cook-up", spending the same amount of energy as I was doing 1 blank.

With my foil paper sizes, I get 3 pen blanks per wrap or a single knife blank block per each strip of foil, that packs nicely on the size oven I've got and any leaks (always possible) go into a tray that seats just above the bottom heating coil (has top and bottom heating coils).

While the foil wrapping allows for the power savings of considerable nature, the foil costs, are a small investment for the results. I also believe that, with the wood wrapped in foil, apart from voiding 99% of leaks, and void the wood to stick together like cement, there are other factors of which I can see that the foil is an advantage.

Heat is distributed to the wood in a much more controlled way, the foil works as a insulator that while maintaining the Juice in contact to the wood and it heats and not dripping down and away from the wood, it also protects the wood from "burning" to a certain degree.

The 200°C is a lot more heat than I would like the Juice to set at, as at such curing temperature, certain woods will "roast" a little to much, with a good provability to spoil the wood. With the solid (liquids) tray over the bottom heating element/coil, the burning danger comes from the top heating element, particularly if the oven if filled to capacity (too close to the element/coil) that, will certainly "burn" the wood no doubt however, that that be voided by putting another tray or a couple of sheets of heavy duty foil, on the top of the stack.

Checking the temperatures on the packs stack at the pile centre, using a long temp probe, shows that the wood is at the same temps as the inner temps of the oven so, the heat is distributed evenly when oven fully loaded.

What I have noticed is that, depending on the wood type, some batches do start to smoke as soon as the temperature is reached, one can hear the "cooking" sounds inside the foil packs but, the thick smoke coming out of the oven is tremendous and non stop, right to the minute the timer goes off.

No, there is absolutely no juice leaking on the heating element, nor it could as the aluminium tray covers/exceeds the element's size so, the smoke is coming from inside the foil wrapped packs at a fast as furious rate...!
I have tried reducing the temp. to 150°C or less, and still smokes however, I have had batches that, I hardly saw any smoke being produced.

Being told that the Cactus Juice in non-flammable, is a god thing but, what I would like to know is, how toxic the Cactus Juice smoke is/can be...???

My oven is set-up under cover and in an open area, I don't think that I would like to see/have it in a enclosed environment, when the smoke is bad...!


So Curtis, how toxic is the smoke, do you know...???

Cheers
George
 
I have no idea how toxic the smoke that you mention is. I do not get any smoke. Do you have a typo in your message or are you really cooking the blanks at 200° CELSIUS? If this was not a typo, you are cooking them WAY too hot! If you meant Fahrenheit, then you are at the correct temp but 150° F will not properly polymerize the resin. If you are indeed using Celsius, then the proper cure temp is 90° C.
 
MesquiteMan said:
I have no idea how toxic the smoke that you mention is. I do not get any smoke. Do you have a typo in your message or are you really cooking the blanks at 200° CELSIUS? If this was not a typo, you are cooking them WAY too hot! If you meant Fahrenheit, then you are at the correct temp but 150° F will not properly polymerize the resin. If you are indeed using Celsius, then the proper cure temp is 90° C.
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Holy SUGARRRRRRRRRRR, mate :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::mad:, why in a hell did I not realise that the 200° you mention in your web/videos, etc., was Fahrenheit and not Celsius, I should have remembered that you guys use F in your temps, bloody hell, no wonder why some woods looked a bit too cooked, reason of my extra foil protection above and bellow the heating elements.

I find it totally amazing that I have mention you system and the cooking temps to set the juice, here (a few times) and elsewhere where the 200°C were constantly mentioned and the only observation I had was that, at those temps the wood would need the foil for protection from burning, but most people accepted it as OK so, I'm annoyed, mesmerised, surprised and glad that, such temps are indeed just to damn high for wood, with foil or not, period...!

This may serve as an example, not so much for the guys in the USA and I believe in Canada where, the unit of heat measurements is Fahrenheit and not Celsius like us here in Australia and most European countries so, for those like myself in the Celsius world, the correct temperature to set/cure the Cactus Juice is 90°CELSIUS or 200° Fahrenheit...!

My observation to Curtis is, if I have been wrongly convinced of the setting temperatures, for all this time, with the amount of reading and video watching, means that some how, the info in not totally clear or explained in such way that, would leave no doubts to what the correct temperature is, in either Fahrenheit or Celsius.

As soon as I have the opportunity, I will try to go through the info on your web site and see those videos again and see where I went wrong and how easy or not the confusing may/have/will occur to other also.

I'm sure that, you have provided the correct information for the product, and you probably though that, no silly bastard would cook their stabilised blanks at 200°C, maybe so but, if I made the mistake, other may do the same.

If it turns out that, no one has even considered the 200°C for the curing process, I should maybe request to be put into the World Records Book for...!!!! yeah, something like that, thanks...!:redface::biggrin:

OK so, if the smoke was caused by the juice "burning" in some way, and you have never experienced it, makes sense however, one thing that I've noticed is that, most of my blanks/woods come out with the same dry juice "crust" as those you show in your videos and the way I would expect anyway so, my next question to you is this, the dust produced from sanding the stabilised blanks/wood, is it toxic, is there anything in the juice composition that would make it more dangerous when sanding than, the risks of inhaling any fine sawdust...???

There is obviously a lot more than fine sawdust, the harden juice is sanded down into very fine particles that mix with the wood when reaching the woof surface so, I'm not advising anyone to sand them, without some sort of a breathing apparatus, my question is, will a "normal" dust musk be sufficient or, there are chemicals there that require a better breathing safety apparatus...???

Then and again, most folks would say that, they only do a few at the time so, the exposure to its sanding dust isn't a big deal however, I would disagree with such statement, I do a lot more than a "few" at the time,. 100 blanks is my vacuum chamber capacity, and I like to save on power as much as I can so, stabilising and cooking items, have an identical capacity...!

I don't expect you Curtis, to know everything however, I would expect you to find out, for all of us sake...!

Cheers
George
 
George,

I did the looking for you and this is a copy and paste DIRECTLY from the directions for use on my website:

7.Cure at 200° F (93° C) for 1-1.5 hours
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You are correct that the video just says 200° but it is done with an American (Texan) accent, thus it is assumed that most would know it is Fahrenheit!! Heck, I can't help it that you guys decided to use a different system!:biggrin:

I am going to be re-doing my videos soon and I will make sure to state the temp in Celsius as well to avoid confusion.

It will not hurt the resin to cook it at a higher temp. It will just cause more of the resin to leak out of the blank before polymerization. The smoke you are getting is not the Juice burning in any way but rather off gassing due to the higher temp. Off gassing like you have seen does not happen at lower temps. Right before the Juice polymerizes, there will be some off gassing for a short period of time but it is hardly noticeable by most.

As for the toxicity of cured Cactus Juice sanding dust...it is no more toxic than any other acrylic and would be very similar to Plexiglas. That said, wood dust is very dangerous on its own, as you know. I know first hand...my dad died of cancer caused by excess wood dust exposure. Always wear a mask or use really good dust collection and you will be good to go.
 
George, fyi in Canada we are mostly metric & we too use Celsius (not Farenheit) we also use litres (liters) not gallons (imperial or US) at the pump but for some other measurements we seem use a mixture of metric & imperial not least is 'board feet' & feet & inches for lumber.... go figure. (I think that is due mainly to who our main trading partner is) We also travel in kilometers not miles & we buy weighed items in Kg or Grammes & Tire (Tyre) pressures are in Pascals (stupid unit) Kg/cm2 would be much more meaningful.
Hope that clarifies things :rolleyes: :confused:
David
 
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Kretzky said:
George, fyi in Canada we are mostly metric & we too use Celsius (not Farenheit) we also use litres (liters) not gallons (imperial or US) at the pump but for some other measurements we seem use a mixture of metric & imperial not least is 'board feet' & feet & inches for lumber.... go figure. (I think that is due mainly to who our main trading partner is) We also travel in kilometers not miles & we buy weighed items in Kg or Grammes & Tire (Tyre) pressures are in Pascals (stupid unit) Kg/cm2 would be much more meaningful.
Hope that clarifies things :rolleyes: :confused:
David
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Oh, heck yeh! I understand a lot less not, that made it as clear as mud!! Or would that be mudd? :eek::biggrin:
 
I've never had any issues with the temp, to me it was obvious it was F Curtis.

As for the dust, yes you should take precautions, be it wood/resin/cactus juice blanks. You should use the best you have. Even if it is just a fan behind you, blowing it away from you, it's better than nothing.

Cheers
 
Dai Sensei said:
I've never had any issues with the temp, to me it was obvious it was F Curtis.

As for the dust, yes you should take precautions, be it wood/resin/cactus juice blanks. You should use the best you have. Even if it is just a fan behind you, blowing it away from you, it's better than nothing.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Neil,

Well, it may be so, and that's fine by me, my concern is that, if I have misunderstood the info, some how, many others may make the same mistake so, this serves more as a call for what the correct info is, so that others have a clear idea of what is required for curing the Juice..!

As for the sanding dust from the stabilised blanks, again I'm more focusing on less experienced people that may think that a mask is not really necessary. Apart from the fact that a regular dusk mask IS NEEDED, I enquired about the possibility that a chemical musk would be better suitable, if there were toxic dried chemicals, among the dust produced when sanding the stabilised blanks...!

Very much like thinking aloud, so that others may hear the concerns and correct advise, in the process.

Working with new products, always triggers a series of questions that, will determine if the product will continued to be used or, the risks are too great so, not worth it.

I like what the Cactus Juice in doing to my woods, particularly those that I put a side years ago, after my wood hardening attempts, with whatever I had available at the time, weren't satisfactory to me so, I have all the interest in knowing all I can about the product, as I'm using a "fair" amount of it...!

I like to be cautious...!

Cheers
George
 
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