Stabilization Services

[dwpenworks]

Hello from Indianapolis. I have been on the forum for a while now and have finally got the guts to ask a question.

Don't anybody get in a fight over this as that is what seems to happen on these threads. I'll just go back into hiding if that were to happen.

Here's the question. Does anyone know of someone who is willing to stabilize pen blanks? I could do it myself but was wondering if there was some other way that I did not have to spend 300-400 hundred dollars for a gast pump. I have some wood that I cut down myself and would like to use but its too green, and I have the hankerin to do some turning now. I don't want to wait for it to dry in other words.

Help me out if you can. If you can't say hi anyway.

Thanx in advance.[8D]

 

[Mikey]

$3-$400 for a pump is way too much. I have a vacuum pump made for refridgeration use that sucks to almost 30hg and I got it for $189 IIRC. That said, I don't know how long you need to let anything run for before the wood is saturated.

 

[Gary Max]

David lets see if I can help you.
Green wood--pen blanks --- you can dry them a couple at a time in your micowave.
Stabilizing---if the wood needs to be harder---it is to soft---also the most commom way to color blanks. Works great on spalted woods that are soft.
So wet and needs to be stabilized are two different things.

 

[Dario]

David,

Seems like you are refering to two differnt kind of stabilization.

Most commercial areas do the resin (or maybe other materiasl) impregnation which is done to DRY wood. It makes the wood more solid (and at times color is added too) to improve strength and beauty of the finished product.

The other one is to avoid checking/cracking of the wood during drying.

The good news is...you can do the turning now with your wet/green wood. I did that a lot on most of my bowls. Some just rough turn then they let it dry. I complete the process as soon as I can...turn it green to final dimension, sand, dry in microwave, apply finish.

BTW, Hello

 

[wdcav1952]

Originally posted by dwpenworks
<br />Hello from Indianapolis. I have been on the forum for a while now and have finally got the guts to ask a question.

Don't anybody get in a fight over this as that is what seems to happen on these threads. I'll just go back into hiding if that were to happen.

Here's the question. Does anyone know of someone who is willing to stabilize pen blanks? I could do it myself but was wondering if there was some other way that I did not have to spend 300-400 hundred dollars for a gast pump. I have some wood that I cut down myself and would like to use but its too green, and I have the hankerin to do some turning now. I don't want to wait for it to dry in other words.

Help me out if you can. If you can't say hi anyway.

Thanx in advance.[8D]

David,

You have had some good answers, but here is another thought. Go to this site http://www.rrpwhite.com/acryliwood.htm and look at some of the things Stephen and Carol White do. Click on the contact us button and drop him an email with respect to the wood you want to have stabilized. Steve let me send him a pile of blanks to be professionally stabilized, and his results are far superior to anything I have done on my own. His charge was based on weight if I remember correctly. In the past, he has let people send just a blank or two to test his process on. Naturally I do not know if he still does that, but you might want to ask him.

Hope this helps.

 

[dwpenworks]

I always knew there were great people on this site and this thread is just one more way to prove it. I put this question up 10 minutes ago and I already have a lot of answers. Keep em coming, and thanks to all who have already helped so much.

 

[Dario]

Just curious...why you got that impression on this forum?

Most people here are "civil" and willing to help. Sure it is not perfect and there are a few squabbles every now and then but they are far in between. As long as you stay out of it, you won't be affected actually [].

You will enjoy it here...so stick around! []

 

[dwpenworks]

Believe me I will stick to it, and stay out of it at the same time if possible. Thanks again.

 

[RussFairfield]

There are alternatives to commercial stabilization or trying to duplicate the commercial process at home.

There are a couple ways to do a homebrew stabilization that work pretty well for me. They cost less, give me total control of the wood, and are less likely to color or subdue the color and contrast of the wood grain.

I use this for very spalted wood that is getting close to rotten. Soak the pen blanks for a few days in a 50/50 mixture of glue and water. Remove and let them sit for a week to dry. Elmer's white glue is almost colorless. Titebond is more sandable but leaves an amber color in the wood. You can get beter penetration by turning the blanks to round and drilling a hole in the middle before soaking. The hole will have to be redrilled to out in the tubes. Give the wood a good soak with thin CA as a part of the sanding and finishing.

You can omit the glue if the wood will stay together to drill and turn. Soak the wood with thin CA glue before you start turning, and repeat as the glue is turned away. Give it a good soaking with thin CA as part of the sanding and finishing. This is every bit as good as a commercial stabilization process and less expensive. If in doubt about about the cost, I can at least 10 pens with a 4-ounce bottle of CA, and that is less than $2 apiece, even if I buy Hot Stuff at the local dealer. Last time I looked, stabilized wood cost more than that.

 

[wdcav1952]

David,

Trust me on this one. Russ Fairfield is the ultimate resource when it comes to wood-turning.

 

[TomServo]

I'd like to butt in where I have no experience, and say that you could combine Russ's technique with a food saver type hand vacuum pump to speed things up as far as the soaking goes.. I must say, having seen his post here I'm going to try and get my hands on one to experiment with.

 

[rtjw]

There are a lot of homebrews out there and alot of people use different techniques. Some use acetone and plexiglass, some use polyurethane, and there are others. If you can find your self a cheap vacuum pump it will do wonders for you.

I use a polyurethane mixture which includes polyurethane, a thinner and an adhesive that I get that is sorta like a thick paste. I mix all of them up and that is what i use to stabilize my corn cobs and wood.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Ditto the excellent service and results of stabilization by River Ridge. http://www.rrpwhite.com/

 

[GregD]

Let me toss this into the mix. If you own an air compressor, get the HF venturi type vacuume pump. The last I knew it was $10.00 + shipping. It works great!

 

[Jim in Oakville]

Hi David,

Can't answer your question, just wanted to Say I love Indy, great city!

 

[dwpenworks]

Greg, now thats the type of dollar amount i'm looking into. Will try tomorrow. Jim thanks for saying hi. Indy is a nice place to live. Not too big and not too small. Nice people too.[8D]

 

[wudwrkr]

David,
Check out River Ridge Products:
http://www.rrpwhite.com/

They offer a Resin Stabilizing Service. They have a trial offer to stablilize 4 pen blanks for $9.00.

Good luck,

 

[Tea Clipper]

Hi David,

If you're looking to turn green wood in a hurry, I don't think stabilization is your answer. Rather, you need to look into accelerating the drying time. Try looking up the microwave method using our search function, or perhaps someone else can outline the procedure for you. There's a few other methods I'm sure someone will chime in with too.

 

[redfishsc]

Tea clipper is right. Your terminology is kinda swapped backward.

STABILIZATION= impregnating very soft or highly spalted/figured (aka, "punky") woods with some sort of resin to make them harder, thus easier to turn without blowing them up. Very few people do this when they are green, as the water in the wood takes up space that otherwise ought to be occupied by resin.


DRYING= taking otherwise normally good wood (ie, not spalted or highly burly) and drying it to a safe moisture level. To do this in a hurry, the microwave method can work (and can also split the holy heck out of them and stink up the house).

Personally I slice all my green pen blanks up into 1" by 6.5" long blanks and stack them in a box lined with newspaper, and cover with newspaper and close the top up. Let them sit for a month, take them out, and let them sit another month in open air (like in a house where humidity is low).

I always soak spalted, burled, or figured woods in denatured alcohol overnight before drying with the above method, it does reduce splitting and warping.

 

[ctEaglesc]

First of all you don't need a ghast pump.If you have a compressor you can "home stabilze" for less than 30 bucks including the acetone and pickle jar[].
<b>note please do not debate the cost of adding a vacuum chamber made out of threaded pipe OR a pressure pot, I am referring only to the process of stabilizing to dry wood,(I don't care what type of chamber you use.)</b>

Not meant to start a fight,but it might start a good discussion(.
I too recommend drying as opposed to stabilizing
BUT
the above comments prompted me to "think" and come up with a question.
Redfish-
I recall you were a great proponent of soaking turning blanks in alcohol to speed up drying.The reasoning being the cells'moisture was replaced with alcolhol and the alcohol would then evaporate faster than moisture (water) drying naturally.
Here's where the question comes in.
If the blank were put in an acetone plexi solution and a vacuum pulled on it and then released and continued the process, would that not have the same effect of the alcofol "soak" only with the added benifit of the added plexi?
I have been "home stabilizing" about as long as anyone on this forum maybe longer( 2+ years) with the HF venturi pump and acetone plexi but since I don't use green woods I never considered using it to dry wood.
Of course I would never consider Nuking a blank I havce stabilized withacetone and plexi (but then again I might)[]

 

[Monty]

Originally posted by ctEaglesc
If the blank were put in an acetone plexi solution and a vacuum pulled on it and then released and continued the process, would that not have the same effect of the alcofol "soak" only with the added benifit of the added plexi?

Eagle, I'll try to answer this as I routinely dehydrate tissue for embedding in epoxy resin.
If I were to do it this way, I'd soak the blank in 2 or 3 changes of pure acetone first to remove the water. Then I would do the acetone/plexi mix. Water can do funny things to plastics when mixed together.

 

[ctEaglesc]

Water can do funny things to plastics when mixed together.

Would you explain further?
What happens to the plastic" (Plexi)
I mean everything I stabilize has some moisture in it.

 

[Monty]

Originally posted by ctEaglesc
<br />

Water can do funny things to plastics when mixed together.

Would you explain further?
What happens to the plastic" (Plexi)
I mean everything I stabilize has some moisture in it.

I don't know what effect it will have with plexiglas, it may work perfectly fine for you with no problem. If so, great. I can only tell you my experience from my tissue processing. I use an epoxy resin for embedding my tissue. If I do not remove all the water by dehydrating through acetone or alcohol, the plastic blocks will "fracture" (small chip-outs) instead of a smooth cut when I try to cut them. These fractures look very similar to the chip-out you get on acrylic blanks when you try to take off too much at one time or use not-so-sharp tools.
Granted, different plastics will react differently. It would appear from your past experience that this may not be a problem.

 

[ctEaglesc]

MOnty-
I really haven't had any"experience" by that I mean I know anything I stabilize has moisture in it to some degree.
Any "plastic" I turn would have no need to be stabilized.
I do understand about "fractures." Certain acrylics have them until I realized it was me, not the blanks fault.(too aggressive)

 

[vick]

I have bought River Ridge stabelized blanks before and they are excellent, much harder than what I usually see in stableized blanks. Though I have never sent them wood to be stabelize.
With that being said on their site they state that the wood needs to be dry with a mosture content on less than %10. I believe this is true of most commercial stabelizeing service.
If in fact what you want is advice on drying wood let us know. I have used the microwave method on pen blanks and it seemed to work good but I do not have a moisture meter so I can not say what moisture content it got down to. Many bowl turners use the alcohol drying method and report very good results. Other than that building a homemade kiln is an other option that I believe Russ Fairfield discussed some where (high watage light bulb as heat source). Again let us know if you need specifics.

 

[Monty]

Eagle, Your "experience" comes from doing, and you have had success with your method. All that really matters is it works and you are happy with the results. All I was stating is that not all "plastics" may work well if water is present. An example would be what vick mentioned, that River Ridge wants a MC of 10% or less. Notice not all the water is removed, just 90%+. And you are right when you state that plastic does not need to be stabilized. What you are doing is using the plactic to stabilize the wood. What I was trying to point out is that with some plastics, water may make them more brittle a thus more susceptible to "fractures". If you have not had a problem with this in the past than it is a moot point.

 

[low_48]

I spent some time talking on the forestry forum about vacuum kiln drying. Commercial units pull a vacuum on the wet wood to lower the boiling point of water. In a full vacuum, water will boil at 90 degrees, and the wood will dry quickly. I wonder if when stabilizing a wet blank, will the water try to boil out and if it does not turn to steam, will there be water bubbles?

 

[redfishsc]

Eagle, looks like Monty stepped up for me since I really don't have anything better to say than he did, other than "sounds like it's worth a shot".

I dried a few bowls in some recycled/reclaimed lacquer thinner (ie, cheap) and it seemed to work great, but lacquer thinner is quite toxic so I stick to DNA or methanol (which isn't as "skin absorbant toxic" as lacquer thinner).