Stabilizing Wood in a Homemade Vacuum Chamber

I am putting this in the general forum becasue anyone that works with wood can help out here..

I built a Vacuum chamber to stablize wood straight razor scales, the blanks are 1.5 x 6 x 1/8 approx. everything is working and I have held a 25-27 in/Hg vacuum for a steady 12 hours now..

My first two batches were done with Daly's and I have used Minwax Wood hardener in the past..

My question is what other products should I try, in the chamber????

Thanks in advance

 

Glen, I've never heard doing this before, am I right in guessing the vacuum chamber removes moisture and allows the hardener to super saturate the wood?

 

Jar = Valsic 1 1/2 quart $3.42 with Pickels
Daly's = $16 per Qt x 2
Fittings & Washers = $8.69
Silicon Sealer = $4.49
Pump Kit $24.99

Feeling of success when it worked, and didn't implode like so many people warned about = Priceless

















Tricks I have learned already,
Slowly bring the pressure down about 5 in/hg at a time let the foam up occur and then bring it down again
After 1 hr release the pressure, and then let the wood sink lower, and drop the pressure again
I have it holding at 25 in/hg and it has held there today for over 4 hours so far
Do NOT let the sealer touch the fitting inside the jar it will wreck your pump if it gets sucked in
You can create a double "Boiler" type set up and keep things really safe if you can get the right size glassware ie: a smaller jar of finish inside a larger jar that holds the Vacuum


The first batch of Burls




So far the hardest parts were finding the right jar
Finding and adapting the fittings
and Resisting the urge to keep testing the wood every couple of hours to see how it is drying


BTW This is NOT my idea, I just simply adapted it specifically for my usage

Ok holding at 27 in/Hg for 12 hours now I just put the Brake Fulid Reservoir that came with the kit, in line between the Vacuum chamber and the pump, so that should solve the problem of an accident with the foam up possibly getting to the Pump...


I bought the one at Harbor Freight here

Brake Bleeder & Brake Bleeder Vacuum Pump Kit

I priced them locally at the Auto parts Houses and the cheapest was $49 and they went up to $99 so I figured I would at least try the HF one and see what happened, heck I could buy 2-4 of them for the same price as the others and every one on them looked the same except for the packaging, and all were made in China anyway...

 

It removes the air from the wood and by doing so draws in the finish, It works and it works well but I want a more substantial set up with the finish...
I am really wondering what the limitations are, I am thinking perhaps a Polyurethane, as that should set up very hard and soild

 

I don't have any first hand experience to offer you but I know that some people are using various casting resins to stabilize wood that would be otherwise unusable and some of the results they are getting are spectacular. I think that it started with some of the pen turners but I have seen it used for bowls and goblets as well. One name that I have heard for a casting resin is aluminite but I believe that there are others around as well. If you do a search for a guy by the name of Dave Bell he seems to be doing a lot of this kind of stuff.

 

Thanks Glen, Neat idea and good luck with the finishes. I can understand why you were warned about implosion, I would have been concerned too. Of course building a plexiglass safety shield ala Mythbusters wouldn't be a bad idea either

 

This is really neat.

 

Very interesting, Glen. Thanks for sharing.

 

Wow that is quite the setup you have there.

 

Here's a link to what some folks use. http://www.penturners.org/forum/f43/pressure-vacuum-setup-using-hf-paint-pot-28705/

 

If i can help any of you out with youre stabilizing questions feel free to ask!! I have stabilizing chambers of all sizes up to 8' long and also two types off stabilizing resin that i can help you out with.

Jon

 

im interested to know what kind of resin you use.

 

do you build your own vacuum chambers?

 

Beat me to it. I was gonna suggest to OP to check out the penturners forums, as there's several discussions about homemade/DIY pressure systems for woodwork/turning

 

This is great information that I found with Google http://www.northcoastknives.com/northcoast_knives_tutorials_hints_tips3.htm

 

You should try Cactus Juice from Turntex. It is what 90% of the pen turners and call makers use. It is a heat cured resin so it must be baked at 200° for about an hour after saturating in but you can feel the weight difference in your blanks and it practically turns the whole blank into resin without losing the figure of the wood. And you can call the owner himself (Curtis Seebeck) with any questions you might have. We all have little toaster ovens in our shops to cure our blanks. Just wrap them in foil (don't forget that part) and bake away. You will be glad you did.

 

I know this is way off thread, so I will ask a little tolerance.

Vacuum is my favorite way of introducing marinates into meat. The same physics at work here work with meat and marinate. 5 Minutes for a fully marinated steak.

 

Mark, that's genius! Do little bubbles come out of the meat like with the wood?

 

Thanks for sharing this! I whipped one together and am testing it right now with a mixture of acetone, minwax stain, teak oil, and linseed oil. I have no idea how it's going to turn out. Let the experimentation begin...

 

Yup. It is a weird type of bubbling, though, because as the air comes out the marinate goes in. Wow! old thread.