Review of Mesquiteman's Cactus Juice Stabilization Chamber and Cactus Juice

[Padre]

Received my chamber and 'juice' from Curtis today. Here are pictures of the chamber and juice. I am not re-posting them because my chamber and gallon of juice looks just the one on his site.

1. Packaging. Wow. Everything was shrink-wrapped and surrounded by plastic insulation. Everything. Even the hose. Not one mark on any part. The box was excellently packaged.

1.5 This is high quality stuff. You can just tell that Curtis took a lot of time and effort building this. It looks good.

2. After unpacking and assembling, (a total of 5 minutes) I chose 10 blanks to stabilize. 5 black walnut burl blanks that I am going to use for razor handles, and 5 spalted blanks.

3. Followed the video directions.

4. Hooked it up to my tired old Gast rotary vane vacuum pump. It pulled a 25.3 inHg. It died after 4 minutes (tired ol' thing) and so I hooked up my $15 Harbor Freight venturi vacuum pump and it drew an amazing 28.5 to 29 inHg.

5. Bubbles went away after about 35 minutes. Let soak for another 30 minutes.

6. Took out, drained (saved the left over resin in a pickle jar), wrapped in aluminum foil and cooked at 200 degrees for 45 minutes.


I have to say it looks like close to 100% saturation. They are hard and ready to be cut and turned. The other good thing is that this resin is reactive to blue-light, so if you want to know what kind of penetration you have, get a cheapo blue-light and cut one down the middle and see!

This was a completely simple, easy, clean way to stabilize my blanks. I could have easily put in another 10 blanks or more in this chamber.

Curtis has really hit a home-run on this one.

 

[PenMan1]

My review of Catcus Juice:

It tastes funny and sticks to your teeth. However it is quite filling, expecially if you are on a high fiber diet.

I guess it shows that I am jealous that Curtis thought of such a great "package" before me!

Seriously Chip, thanks for a great review of a wonderful product!

 

[thewishman]

Thanks for the review - well done.

 

[1dweeb]

Great job. I agree Curtis hit it outta the park.

 

[Padre]

And it's so easy. Now I can go into business as a blank stabilizer!

 

[el_d]

Thanks for the review Chip. I went over to see the thing in action right before he unvailed the product. I was very impressed. It did a great job on a very soft blank....

 

[ctubbs]

Chip, I am so jealous! Mine may be in the mail along with my check. I have boxes of spalted punky stuff waiting for the arrival. Curtis hoped to have mine in the mail by this weekend. Not a real problem, I told him to take his time, no rush. BIG LIE but trying to be nice. Thanks, Chip, for the step by step review. Great job.
Charles

 

[greggas]

Hey Chip;

Fun isn't it ? Only problem I had was I only ordered a quart of juice and blew through that and some left over ultraseal (don't worry Curtis I used a jar inside the chamber ) after my first 100 blanks. I don't know why but I really enjoy being able to see the stabilization process...guess I need to get a life...anyways thanks for posting your review.

 

[MesquiteMan]

Thanks for the nice review, Chip, and the nice comments by everyone else. It is a pleasure to have folks appreciate my work!

For those who have pending orders...I sent an e-mail but I think some folks may not be getting them. The demand has been greater than I expected and I am still working out some kinks in inventory management. In this case, I have chambers built to fullfill all outstanding orders but I ran out of stinking bottles! When I first ordered bottles, I was on a VERY limited budget, starting this thing on a shoestring, so I bought quantities of each size that I thought would be popular and would sell. Well, like everything else, it is hard to predict where the demand is going to be and I ran out of the 32 oz and bigger bottles. I have plenty of 16oz bottles, though!!

I re-ordered bottles on Monday but my bottle supplier is a little slow so I am awaiting my shipment myself. As soon as the bottles get here, I will get them filled and get all existing orders shipped. Then I will update my inventory on my website to reflect what I have on hand.

Please bear with me as this is a big learning experience for me with this type of sales!

 

[MesquiteMan]

Hey Chip;

Fun isn't it ? Only problem I had was I only ordered a quart of juice and blew through that and some left over ultraseal (don't worry Curtis I used a jar inside the chamber ) ...

Ultraseal will not hurt the chamber so don't worry! It is a similar chemical composition.

 

[jfoh]

Well I have only a good things to report about the juice. Used three gallons of juice so far. Product works exactly as described, easy to use, makes even the most fragile spalted wood solid. Tried dye and had no problems. Had 100% penetration on wood up to 9" X 9" X 6". Woods that I have tried include, maple, hackberry, Black and English walnut, desert ironwood, buckeye burl, half a dozen other spalted burls, one corn cob, redwood, spalted sycamore, Koa, spalted signature, (autograph) wood and two type of spalted mango. One buckeye burl pen got washed in a pocket. Came out with the CA finish intact and was good as new after drying. The other pen with just a CA finish was less lucky.

I bought his chamber and found that it was well made and worked well but was a little too small for some of my projects. He now has a larger version which I think will be a better size, but will require more juice to cover the wood. Small chambers, nearly filled with wood will need less juice than large chambers with lots of extra space.

I built myself two larger chambers before I found out that he was going to make a big brother. One will hold a blank 3" X 21" X 9", the second will hold wood up to 9" X 9" X 9". Now I can do larger bowl blanks or wood for wooden geared clocks.