Wood Hardner with pressure pot

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spitfire

spitfire

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bloomsburg,pa.
I have some punky spalted sycamore I want to hit with some wood hardner. I have seen people do this with vacum, can I get the same results with pressure? Also, would it be ok to use poly instead of the wood hardner? I have a gallon of poly just sitting around, couldn't I just drop that into the pot put in the wood chunks and put it all under pressure?
 
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I've used a slightly diluted poly before with good success, but I staerted with a good bit of vacuum prior to switching over to pressure.
 
I am not setup for vacum yet, do I have do be? Will I hurt anything if i put the whole gallon of poly in the pressure pot(in the actual gallon it came in) and put the wood in and add pressure?
 
The poly has to be thinned down before you use it as a hardener. I have used the Minwax wood hardener and put pressure on it for several days and it worked out well for me. I use an empty gallon paint container and place the blanks in it and cover them completely with the Minwax. Then put the whole thing in the pot with a cover over the top. I use about 80lbs of pressure. They will sink when they are done, I check them every couple of days.
 
From the posts of others here I seem to remember that the poly can - and will - take a long time to setup once the blank is removed.

With that idea in mind I would at least pre-drill the blank if possible. Then when it has been "soaked" in the poly return it to the proper drill size and mount the brass tubes and proceed to turning the blank to shape.

I don't believe putting the poly under pressure should not cause much of a problem . However, pulling any amount of vacuum might result in rapid removal of any solvents or thinners that were present. These type chemicals tend to 'boil' off when the atmospheric pressure is reduced. This will result in major changes to the original mixture and may lead to the chemical being unusable afterwards.

Since I don't use poly for this purpose I cannot say from personal results. A vacuum is what I use and I am having great results using my own formulation of materials. I have also used the Minwax Wood Hardener under vacuum conditions and have been pleased with the results.

Good luck on your endeavors and keep us all informed of your trials and efforts.
 
Fred_erick said:
... However, pulling any amount of vacuum might result in rapid removal of any solvents or thinners that were present. ...
Click to expand...
In my experience, poly doesn't boil at room temperature at the amount of vacuum that I pull when stabilizing a blank. It should be noted that even if some of the mineral spirits (or other thinner) were to boil off, it is still fine since you would check the consistency prior to using the mix to stabilize future blanks.
 
I use Min Wax Gloss Poly right from the can. Pre-drill the blanks and most are saturated over night under 30" of vacuum. I allow them to drain for about an hour then into the hot box. Dried in about 24 hours. The poly will though darken lighter woods. And if you find boil off to be a problem no matter what you are using to stabilize with, if time allows, allow the blanks to soak for a day or two prior to pulling a vacuum.

I've tried pressure but not as happy with the results, especially with corn cobs.
 
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I have used melted plexiglass, (to a consistancy a little thinner than syrup) in a quart canning jar. Used the food vacuum sealer to cycle through 6 vacuum periods. Took two days total. Took the blanks out, they "cured" within two days.

BTW, I predrilled the blanks under size first.

I have used this method on soft cedar and corn cobs with good success.
Steve
 
Thanks for all the ides guys. Most of the wood I need to do this to right now is wor wine stoppers. I see most are using vacum which I don't have yet. I am going to try it with pressure over the weekend and go from there.
 
With stoppers, I turn them down to about the shape I want, leaving them about 1/8" proud. I then use pressure and MinWax Wood Hardener. Let them sit for 4-5 days and finish turn them.
 
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