Thread: Vacuume stabilization with plexiglas and acetone help.

See my comments/suggestions in red below

Originally Posted by Pilchard

I have a vac pump coming and want to build a chamber for ease and maybe safety. Am I going to get better penetration using a vac system? If so how much more should these take up? Not sure, depends on your mixture ( its viscosity) and vacuum pressure. I assume I can re treat the ones I have already done. Yes

It was surprising the amount of moisture and tannin they released, they were dark ugly looking pieces which now have a nice dark honey colour which lets the spalting show off better. There was a surprising amount of water released. I have never seen this, but were you blanks green/wet?

Has anyone tried pressure curing wood like you would freeze dry food? I am wondering if this would give a completely dry blank to work with before stabilization or is this common practice? Using your freezer does work to dry blanks. I use a dehydrator all the time.

The pump will go to 75 Hg, I am hoping it is enough to make them workable and waterproof. 75 Hg, what units are you talking about? The more vacuum the better it will work. Maximum you can achieve at sea level is 29.9" Hg

I have a pressure pot laying around the shed or there is the old masons jar trick.

What sort of Hg should I be aiming for? 20-25? Or alot more. Max

Im new here so plenty of questions. Try a search, a lot of questions have already been asked and answered previously.

Cheers.

Had some more time with the vac and am no more further advanced, yes I have used the search function, and google for many hours.

It seems this method will strip tannins and colour. It also dries them to crisp.

I have had good results with the soft spalted timber, it now turns very easily but on second treatment, more to see how much air I have missed it seems to be alot of air.

If treating 3 or more times to get a good solid piece this is not for me, is there a once off treatment that will give larger cracks and imperfections a filled look? Or actually fill them?

Tested a few bits with .5-1mm borer holes and it seems to only cover the edges of them.


Rosewood looks like it has been bleached and I'm not happy about that.

Can I use fibreglass resin or will I get the same bleaching problem? Will FG resin fill in the cracks better?

Could I use spar varnish? Obviously a slower drying time And entering time but I could bag them to hold it in as it dried??

I can do 12 at a time without issues so spar would be a cheap alternative but I don't want to try it unless someone has had some results.


Looking for an easy way to waterproof I can do at home and relatively decent result, ATM I'm not happy with the acetone/plexiglas method, they are not waterproof.

Any and all help apreciated.

Thanks.

Hope this helps

Originally Posted by Pilchard

Had some more time with the vac and am no more further advanced, yes I have used the search function, and google for many hours.

It seems this method will strip tannins and colour. It also dries them to crisp. Can't comment, I haven't experienced it

I have had good results with the soft spalted timber, it now turns very easily but on second treatment, more to see how much air I have missed it seems to be alot of air. Perhaps the first treatment sealed it, hence air could not be removed, and resin couldn't get in

If treating 3 or more times to get a good solid piece this is not for me, is there a once off treatment that will give larger cracks and imperfections a filled look? Or actually fill them? I find stabilizing doesn't fill voids etc, not with the stabilizing resins I use anyway, it is only to harden up punky wood. I cast my cracked/voided blanks with clear casting resin first under pressure to fill them. I then use vacuum to stablize the punky wood.

Tested a few bits with .5-1mm borer holes and it seems to only cover the edges of them. Yes, stabilizing resin is not a filler. It needs to be water thin to penetrate, but this means it has trouble filling holes, as it drains away before going off.


Rosewood looks like it has been bleached and I'm not happy about that.

Can I use fibreglass resin or will I get the same bleaching problem? Will FG resin fill in the cracks better? Yes FG will fill the cracks better, clear casting resin is better if you want clear product. Problem is that this resin isn't that thin and goes off relatively quickly, especially when heated to thin it and under vacuum, so it may not penetrate through wood and will only fill exposed holes.

Looking for an easy way to waterproof I can do at home and relatively decent result, ATM I'm not happy with the acetone/plexiglas method, they are not waterproof. Do you want to stabilize, or make waterproof? What are you trying to actually do?

If you are after a wooden blank to look and finish like a resin blank, I have not had any success. If you want to fill voids and cracks and turn any punky/wormy wood solid enough to turn, then use above technique.

Any and all help apreciated.

Thanks.

One thing to be careful about.. putting acetone under vacuum will make it boil
pretty quickly, but also the fumes can attack seals inside the vacuum pump and
cause it to fail.
.. just something to watch out for

I'm wanting to waterproof more than anything, as a stabiliser for some of the punky wood I have it worked a treat. The aim of the game is to use these on fishing rods so waterproofing is essential. Reels knock finish of reel seats so just finishing with spar or similar is not good enough. The wood needs to be impregnated or so dense it will not take up water. It seems alot of the nice pretty stuff is softer and needs to be treated. I suppose companies like struble and golden witch use the timbers they do for their water repelling/density qualities but I won't be beaten yet and will keep trying till I find a way to waterproof.

I think I traded terms ie. waterproof/ stabilise. To me it's the same thing for the application, impregnating to harden and fill voids??

The spalted oak I treated is waterproof with just the above treatment, the harder denser woods are not, maybe I have just not the same penetration on the harder timbers. Even a couple of mm of uniform penetration would give the desired effect.

I have spent too many hours on this project trialling rods, guide spacings and components for these beautiful fishing tools to be beaten so to speak in the wooden reels seat. Many if not most manufacturers use un treated wood and are beaten the first time the rod is dunked in water, I don't want the same issues I have tried to learn from the big manufacturers mistakes and fix a relatively easy problem. The next step would be sending select wood overseas to be treated and it will be costly to do so, especially in the small volumes I require.

Cheers

Dean.

You could use the epoxy stabilizer, available from Fibreglass International and marine stockists (not cheap), a 2 part thin epoxy penetrating resin. It takes a while to go off completely, around a week at depth, resulting in a flexible hard rubber like finish. You can certainly use this stuff under vacuum to help with the penetration.

If just waterproofing is your priority you could use a CA finish. Soak it with the thin stuff to start with, to ensure it penetrates the wood, then building up the layers with thick before sanding and buffing back.

People have been making fishing reels for a long time without stabilizing. I have a few of my fathers here, one cedar and another hardwood both finished with marine varnish, he used to cut them back and refinish every few years.

You could also use something like Crows Ash (Australian Teak), a naturally oily timber, or something similar.

Good luck with it.