I have been watching for a thread about stabilizing wood (ourselves) but haven’t seen an acceptable method of doing this discussed yet. I know stabilizedwood.com will do it for us but I am looking for a method of doing it in house. I have a substantial amount of poplar which always has some figure around each knot. It is usually a nice olive color, some with blue/purple or red/orange mineral streaks. This wood is to soft to use for handle material without being stabilized or hardened by some other method.

The companies that do this stabilization commercially appear to be using an acrylic resin. Having painted large items in the past (aircraft), my favorite coating was dupont centari acrylic enamel. This acrylic resin (paint) is, I believe, available in clear as well as custom-tented (transparent tint, not opaque). Might this be an acceptable material to use to stabilize wood if the wood could be saturated with it and then allowed to cure?????

Technique might be something like this:

1. Place wood to be stabilized in a vacuum/pressure vessel. Cover the wood with the unthinned acrylic with or without urethane hardener.
2. Reduce pressure to near vacuum until the wood has had time for all (most) of the air to be evacuated from the wood fibers.
3. Increase pressure in the vessel as high as practical, forcing the resin into the wood fiber.
4. After the wood is saturated, reduce pressure to ambient and remove the wood from the resin bath.
5. Again reduce pressure as much as possible to remove excess resin. (The objective to saturate the wood fibers and not to completely fill the pores between the fibers.)
6. The wood would then be removed and the resin allowed to curing. Might help to place it in a low temp oven.

This finish with a urethane hardener added will get hard inside a paint can in a freezer at 0 degrees F.

Has anyone tried something like this ????

Thanks
Pup

I am trying something along the same lines except I am using Minwax Wood Hardener under vacuum at around 20 in. It fizzes like Alka Selzer. Leave in vacuum for 1 hour. Wood Hardener contains acetone and resen. The test I have run seem to be promising. Paul

Paul
Is the acetone boiling out of the hardener or is it just air being liberated from the wood?

Is the remaining hardener noticibly thicker after the process (less acetone) ?

Thanks
Pup

I have been using the Minwax Harderner for about 6 months with outstanding results. Just a warning. Let the wood cure for at least a week before using. The solvents in the base will eat epoxy for breakfast.

Pup: I have not noticed a difference in viscosity in the hardener. It seems to evaporate and soak in the same, or close I keep the hardener in a mason jar with a pin hole for the vacumm then seal the hole with tape when not in use. I do know however not to speed curing time by placing in the toaster oven...don't ask. :eek:

That would work fine, but may I suggest that the drying is the most important phase.
After curing, draw a suction on the dry wood to remove ANY moisture trapped inside. I would let this set under negative pressure at least overnight befor adding your bug juice.
The knottier the wood, the longer I suck out the moisture. Any moisture trapped inside will be sealed up if not removed first, and cause problems later.

Hi Gene:
Are you talking about drying before or after treatment?
I think it would not be a bad idea to heat the wood for a while before treating it .maybe a light box or I have heard of defrosting in the microwave. Paul

After all that, then draw it too.
There is still some risidual moisture in the middle of the wood, the heat dries the outside by layers, the inside does not dry as quick. The suction draws it out of the ends.
Just a trick I learned on wood.
After drying, I put it in the chamber and draw a suction over night.
A dew meter shows how much moisture is being removed , but few shops have a dew meter to measure the moisture.
Ever notice that fresh cut hard wood has a wax sealer put on the end. This is to prevent moisture from being sucked up inside and getting trapped. You will need to make sure the wax has been removed before stabilizing.
BTW the bubbling is air being removed. It looks like it is boiling.

Gene is it a good idea to drill for the tang before stabilizing?

Mike

Does a positive pressure need to be applied after vacuume is pulled? If so, how high of a pressure for how long? Also is there any way to tell if the wood has been fully penetrated throught without cutting it in half?

Thanks,
Rick

Rick
In my (proposed) technkque, i listed a posative presure to aid penetration of the unthinned acrylic resin (paint) into the wood. I assumed that a negative presure would only cause thinners to boil off yealding a thick medium by the time the vacume was pulled.

The time required to fully saturate the wood would be a factor of the density and grain size of the wood, viscosity of the hardener, the completeness of the vacume pulled to begin, the amount of posative presure applied (if any) and the temperature.

The vacume/presure vesil that i plan to use is rated at 110 Lb. Posative at 650 degrees F. I do not have a vacume source as yet, so i have not been able to do any experimentation yet.

Thanks to Gene for the comment about vacume drying the wood. A point well taken (one i had not previously considered).

I continue to hope that some of the folks with experience in this will help us out. I could spend considerable time experimenting with this to figure out what someone out there

Pup,Reguarding Your idea of useing dupont products,I've done some experamenting using urethane clear coats,{automotive finishes,Problem you have to use the activator{hardener} and it sets up before you get the wood saturated..I plan to keep trying, ...

Pre-drilling is a good idea, esspecially for antler.
The positive pressure helps, but the vaccum is the most critical part, it actually sucks it into the fibers for a good fill.
There are many hardening agents out there.
I have used lots of stuff including epoxy for antler, Thompson's brick sealer is my main formula mixed with a pint of rotted wood hardener.
It works on wood, ivory,ect...
I know a guy who uses styrofoam peanuts liquified with acetone, it basically makes a slow curing super glue.

Just curious Gene, would you give us your formula?

Mike

I have not found one secret formula that works on everything.
I try to think "like the grains,I'm trying to fill", if that makes sence.
Picture in your mind, an orange has a particular grain pattern to it, as does a watermelon or a grape. If I were to replace all the natural juice with a plastic hardener(I mean a chemically produced hard material that can be placed inside the grains themselves in a liquid and then become hard), each grain or cavity might require a different type of plastic hardener in order to fill it completely with out falling out of the grain in the process of hardening.
First I must remove the natural juices by suction, fill the cavity with the right solution, and Keep it there to become solid while it hardens.
Wood has a different grain pattern than ivory or stag. I might need to have three different types of hardener to accomplish these different challenges.
Stag can have a spongey inside where the marrow was. It kinda needs a goop to hold in the voids (or grains).Picture an epoxy type of hardener.
Wood is fairly porous and needs more of a liquid source rather than a gooey source to hold.Goo doesn't flow well enough to fill the grains of wood and must be thinned to work well.Picture a oil based sealer/hardener like minwax products or the Thompson's brick sealer I mentioned earlier mixed with a hardening agent.
Ivory can be the hardest of all requiring several different types, all in one material.
First you must remove ALL moisture from ANY void, then fill the tightest spots first, followed by the larger voids such as in BARK Mammoth ivory.
I might combine two different processes, depending on the need.
For example, I might use the Thompson's stuff to get the tiny voids, and after drying and curing, reapeat the process with another type of hardening agent such as the exoxy types mentioned above.
The combination would improve the over all quality of the material being solidified or "stabilized", as we call it.
I'v used super glue on ivory too, depending on the grain structure of that particular piece. Sometimes using multiple layers of the same agent, works best.S/G is a good example.

I mentioned my secret formulas in the last post, this is more HOW I use them.

Find something you are comfortable with that you think would do a good job.
Play with the variables, untill you get repeatable results, that satisfy your particular needs, then ask someone else how they do it.
Compare and experiment some more with a new understanding.

I'v tried some of those expensive"perfect mixtures", and found they are not as consistant as they are boasted to be.

As I started with, I have found no perfect mixture that works the same on everything.
My "secret" formula is HOW I think about the tasc at hand.
The agents I use are all mentioned here.
I don't see that the super space aged technical formulas are any better than what Grampa used, I just may be using it for something different.
I hope I answered your question in all this.

The lights are starting to dim up..... and things are starting to look a little clearer. 8o

Just like everything else we do, practice and experimentation is the key.

Thanks Gene

has anyone used the methyl methacylate, i guess this is the stuff the commercial people use. i have thought about trying this stuff but would want to make sure before i go out and send a 100.00 on it first, i also have talked to Curtis Wilson and he uses this stuff also...so anyone else out there tried this?

Stan, I did a little research on MMC. It's basically plexiglass or lucite in liquid form, very low viscousity. Sounds promising. I did a search for MMC and wood stabilizing and found one of the pros uses it for woodwinds. Curtis knows his stuff, too.
I found 4 liters for $62.00 at Capitol Scientific in Austin and have ordered it. Safety hazards apply here, read the MSDS:
www.jtbaker.com/msds/m5616.htm (http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/m5616.htm)
flammability, polymerization triggered by sunlight or elevated temperature, etc.
I still send my good stuff out, but love to experiment. Again, read the MSDS and consider the elevated risk of flammability when pumping a liquid down.
I'll contact Curtis for any "gotchas" and post if significant.
Thanks, Stan. The Minwax wood hardener just wasn't giving me the quality I wanted.
Bill

Bill, please keep me posted on how it works out for you,
iam very interested in the outcome.

stan

If I may make a suggestion, I would say a better method might be to place the dry wood in an Empty vacuum chamber.
Do not put the stabilizer in before you draw the vacuum.

Draw as high a vacuum as possible for a time, (overnight , 24 hours whatever is approiate for the state of the wood) release the vacuum thru an air dryer/moisture trap.

Re-vacuum to remove the residual moisture that condensed in the chamber the first time the vacuum was released.

Now, after soaking again in the vacuum, (or unsoaking for want of a better a better term) allow the vacuum to pull the stabilizing material into the chamber instead of air.

That way the liquid is pulled into the wood without having the solvents boiled off. The pressure of the stabilizer entering the chamber will force it deeper into the wood due to the porosity of the wood being still at a lower pressure than the liquid..

Once the liquid has filled the chamber at least enough to cover the wood, pressurize the vessel as high as you can safely.

So now you have a piece of wood completely dry, the air removed, the air replaced with a stabilizing material at a higher pressure than the wood, and then the whole thing put under even more pressure.

If the stabilizer is a catalyst type hardening material you just need to wait for the goo to kick off and you're ready to remove the hardened blocks inside your resin.

But if you are using a material that needs to dry, then you will want to release the pressure very slowly to prevent any trapped air pressure/dissolved gas from pushing the goo back out.
Some oils/materials will hold gas like carbonation in soda water, so you will want to allow the pressure to decline very slowly or the wood will fiss and bubble and all the work will be for naught.

But if it's done calmly and methodically it should give you good results just don't rush it.
(Do like I say, not as I do!)

Jim

Thanks Jim, That was a very good explaination.

Jim, very good point. As Geno said before, the importance of evacuating the chamber to rid the wood of moisture is evident.
Even my 50 year old wood in the atmospheric moisture of Austin could prohibit the absortion af any stabilizer.
So, let it pump down for a long time to rid the wood of all moisture.
Your idea of adding the stabilzer while in rough vac is interesting. Ordinarily you would vent, add stabilizer, and repump. By maintaining vacuum while adding stabilizer you won't have to displace the new air, which may get trapped. anyway.
To accomplish this would be easier than I first imagined.
My configuration now is pump, foam containment jar (which is empty to contain the foam before it contaminates the pump), vacuum chamber. To add the stabilizer while under vac, it would require a third chamber, the stabilizer, with a bottom tube and a valve between the wood stabilizing chamber and the stabilizer container. When the wood Stabilization chamber is at about 25" vacuum, you slowly open the jar containing the stabilizing medium. Once it's filled the middle jar, close it.
Maintain vacuum with pump on intermittently watching the gauge. Don't let it reach atmosphere for 3 days.
I don't know how to administer high pressure without reversing the flow of My vacuum pump, but that may work.

Watcha think??

OK, my question is that instead of completely submerging the wood, standing the wood on end and only leave a small piece of the end out of the stabalizing liquid. Being that water and air is lighter than the liquid it should escape that way.... right? The path of least resistance.

Mike

Bill,
Good point about the separating filter in line before the pump, ("the foam jar") I missed mentioning that important part.

The way I have my chamber set up is with a valve right on the chamber, and a piece of tubing that will come off the fitting from the vacuum pump.

I draw the vacuum, close the valve, pop the tube off the pump and place it in the can of solution.

When the valve is opened the vacuum suctions the solution into the pot.

Then I connect the tube to a pressure pump and pressurize the whole shebang.

I believe it's the difference in pressure between the wood cells and the solution that forces the goo into the wood.

Holding the solution under vacuum seems to me to be counter productive.

If you draw the air out of the wood ahead of time why would you need to keep the goo under vacuum?

All that would do is draw out the volatiles from the goo, thus making it thicker. That is the opposite of what you want at this point.

After the wood has absorbed the goo, then you want the volatiles to escape slowly. Otherwise the wood might crack or check.
Another problem would be for the surface to form a "skin" holding the solvents inside the wood and preventing the wood from drying completely.

I should probably mention, this is just one method and theory, I'm sure there are other methods that work just as well if not better. But with the equipment I have it works well.

Blackbear,

That is one way, but I feel that the difference between water, vapor and oil/fumes while in vacuum wouldn't be enough to make a difference, but the capillary action of the wood is part of the equation. But seeing as how if, you don't use a vacuum on it, you can re-use the oil until it's gone why not cover the wood?

I like to cut the wood so that the grain is cut on a angle to expose as much of the end grain as possible. That way the wood can suck up as much of the goo as it can.

One thing that I do really like is how spalted wood REALLY soaks up the oil, and shows real interesting grain and colors.

Jim

I'll try the pressurizing. Instead of a seperate pressurizing pump, how 'bout diverting the input/output of the vac pump with a two way valve.One for evacuation, one for pressurization. I've got a Gast two stage I'm gonna do that to when I get the MMC. Should just take inexpenxsive Home Depot valves.
You mentioned prolonged evacuation could cause the solution to thicken, an interesting point. Without a solvent mixed with the MMC I would doubt that to be a problem. If solvents such as acetone, etc. were involved, they would vaporize before the monomer, but there is none in MMC.
I can't wait to try this when my bottle of MMC arrives.
You think we're getting carried away here folks?, check how the pros do dino bones....
www.nottingham.ac.uk/pathology/protocols/resbonecut.html (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/pathology/protocols/resbonecut.html)

Bill, I tried hooking up the exhaust side of my vacuum pump but it wouldn't work. It just made funny noises. I quit really quick. Don't know why it didn't work, but I wasn't willing to risk my pump.
Now I use a bicycle pump for pressure, it's amazing how fast you can develop high pressure with a good pump.
Jim

The chemical supply house called to say my four litre bottle of methyl methacrylate has arrived. I'm gonna stabilize some wood today the way you mentioned, Jim. Pump it out first, then add the MMC, I like that method.

There's a low tech approach on Don Fogg's site at www.dfoggknives.com/ShopTips%208.htm. It's from Randal Graham. He says:

"Know what preserve jars are? lockable top ones like grandma pickled stuff in, made all that great jam and stuff...anyway, clear Thompson's Water Seal, or colored variations if you are brave, warm it up in the jar, in a double boiler set-up, till it's really hot... put the bone handle section in, and seal it.

Put it on a shelf for a month or two, longer if you want, you can let them sit for quite a while if need be, or not in a rush. When you take it out to use it, warm it in an oven at around 150f to dry it out, and let it cool slow in the oven. 15 to 30 min ought to do it.

or...

Rig up a way to put a container in some kind of set-up that will allow you to pull 12 or 15 inches of vacuum... put the bone in the Thompson's, seal the rig and pull a vacuum for 15 minutes, let it off for 15, and repeat the cycle three or four times, then do the same dry-out routine.

Lazy in-a-hurry time-is-everything method. Soak it in acetone for 5 or 10 minutes, then massage a good 24 hour epoxy into all surfaces with your fingers, wearing surgical gloves... after it sets you can rub it down a bit with superfine steel wool or 600-800 grit paper with water, and polish it."


JD

I pumped down the wood for a while, then introduced the MMC. I'm pulling 25" with two stage Gast pump. It's been foaming for an hour. The MMC doesn't cause foam overflow into the collection jar like other agents I've used. I'll let it pump until I can't see any more air bubbles coming out. I hope this is the stuff, because now I've got four liters of it.
It's flammability rating of three makes me nervous, but I'm doing it outside of course, and using a diaghram pump.

Several hours of pumping now. I found a leak with a stethoscope and sprayed 3m Super 77 on leaking fitting. Now I'm at 30" vac! The spalted maple is still giving off small bubbles, so I'll let it go several more hours.

After pumping on maple using the MMC and drying, I can put scratches in the wood with mt fingernail. I guess MMC isn't what I'm looking for. It dries quickly and has a brilliant shine with a little buffing.

Bill
You might try Gene's formula. I think he is using Minwax Wood hardener.

I bought some and will try it now that i have am jury-rigged vacume pump working.

Gary (pupandcat)

Gary: I have been trying the minwax sience the last time I posted it does a great job,but for things like spalling and the likes I don't see it being as hard a surface as I would like to hold everything togther. I gusee we will keep trying. What about the syrofoam (sp) superglue? or just superglue. the secret with superglue as I am told, it hardens in the ABSENCE of oxygen or air. I am sure that this would make a very fine mess<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/ohwell.gif ALT=":\"> oh well keep on trying.
Paul

bill, did you also use the benzol peroxide for the activator and heat cure it?..from what curtis wilson say's you have to use that for it to harden...?
stan

Paul
For the problem you described, it might work to use slow setting epoxy, heated to thin it. Pore the pre heated epoxy over the preheated wood and container. Pump a vacuum briefly and then apply as high a posative presure as your setup will handle until it cures. (My set up is limited to 110psi posative.)

Would experiment with epoxy viscosity and setting time at elevated temps first.

Just and idea
Pup (Gary)

I don't know, Gary;
That whole heated epoxy business sounds like a problem the fumes alone, someone fight find you on the floor. I just did some mahogany in wood hardener and it seems to be fine. Next I have a very nice piece of walnut burl that I am going to do. I have heard and have tried wiping down a handle with several coats of super glue and this does a great finish. on a softer piece I may try wood hardener inside then a super glue glaze when I am finished. what do you think.Paul

By the way, I like your chopper!

Funny thing is, Ken McFall of K&G(no relation*darn it*or maybe he would let me in on the way they do it)is on these forums and he is either saying we are way off base or we are getting closer....i dont think he's going to tell us:)

stan

I have seen varithanes, urothanes, polimers, acrylics, plastics, even bondo fiberglass used to stabilize with.
I have seen colors added, shiny specs added like metalflake added,even stones added in the stabilization stage.
Some agents harden by air, some by heat, and still others by light.
It is more up to the "process", rather than the agent used, to achieve success.
The right agent with the wrong process is just as bad as the right process with the wrong agent, neither works well.
A good process will go farther than trying to find that perfect mixture that works well on everything.
Just about all the info is here, it is just a matter of figuring what works best together for the type of material you are stabilizing.
I don't stabilize ALL my ivory(for example) the same way, because all ivory does not have the same grain pattern and structure, nor does bone, or stag, or wood, ect...
The secret is to fill the voids with your agent, and have it stay there untill it becomes solid,removing all moisture.