Can you stabilize wood in a pressure pot ?

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robutacion

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Joined
Aug 6, 2009
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Location
Australia - SA Adelaide Hills
But it still has to have Vacuum


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Yes, this has been tried many times before without much success and I explain why;

To remove oxygen/air from the wood cells to have it replaced with the stabilizing solution/resin, vacuum can do it at fairly low "negative" pressures such as most vacuum pumps can easily reach, however, if you want to use pressure to saturate/soak wood, you would need a lot more than any of our common air-compressors can ever reach from about 60 to 100 PSI, in fact, the commercial stabilization systems use large chambers that are capable of working under thousands of PSI, in average 5,000 PSI is what they most use.

With common stabilization chambers such as the ones we use, the vacuum is not so much what forces the solution into the wood but, what happens when the air bubble stop, the pump is switched off and air is introduced back into to the chamber (bleeding), this is when the wood does most of the "soaking" so leaving it there for a few hours is most important.

Now, you would be able to stabilize wood without any apparatus at all by simply soaking it in the solution, what type of woods would be suitable??? only the very soft and very punky/spalted woods. This brings us to one of the most important issues about stabilizing, are all woods suitable...?

The answer is no, some are very easy, some are so-so, some are difficult and some are impossible (the densest woods) and this is what each person has to consider when thinking of wood stabilization.

Many other folks in here that are also experienced with wood stabilization may have other ways to explain all this, I'm giving you my "version" hoping that you and others in your position will understand a little better of the processes involved and the reasons why.

Cheers
George
 
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