stabilizing wood w/ poly

[dado]

I'm wanting to learn to stabilize wood and other various materials, but I'm having a little trouble figuring out how. I read Lee Biggers article on stabilizing wood using polyurethane but I'm embarrassingly ignorant of such matters. I understand how to place the negative pressure gauge on the lid of the gallon jar, but how do I get the air out to create the vacuum? I've found several vacuum pumps for purchase but they are all extremely expensive. Is there another option? Thanks.

 

[Scottydont]

I use a Mighty brand Hand pump from Harbor freight. It cost me about $30 bucks. If you have a air compressor Harbor freight makes a vacuum pump that is driven by air. They are typically used for evacuating air conditioning systems. I think Mudder uses one. If I remember is was like $14-16 bucks?

 

[low_48]

dado, I use something like this to hold the vacuum.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=48839&item=5766752496&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

I place the dome on a gasket that sits on a sink cutoff from a kitchen countertop shop. I bring in the vacuum hose under the cutoff into the dome. I place a pickle jar filled with my poly and blanks inside the dome and hook this all up to a pump that I use for my veneer work. The dome I have is clear and lets me monitor what is going on. You need to pull a very hard vacuum, and by what others have written, you pull the vacuum several times to get the material into the blank.

Rich

 

[JimGo]

Lou (DCBluesMan) posted the following link in a related thread. Basically, if you can find the parts, you can make one yourself:
http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/aero/vacuum/index.html

Here's the thread, which has other info too:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4605&SearchTerms=scitoys

 

[rtjw]

Depending on how much you want to stabilize depnds on how big a container you need. I am currently using a 5 gallon container that is steel and sealable. I am having one made that is 25 gallons and should be ready in about a month. A 5 gallon container can hold a lot of wood. A one gallon container can hold about 15 to 20 blanks. A 5 gallon can hold about 100. The one I am having made will hold about 500. There are several different solutions you can stabilize wood with. I am using a polyurethane based solution. I think it is better than the acrylic resins. Just my opinion. The acrylics make the wood to hard and tough to turn sometimes. I have been stabilizing corn cobs (which are really hard to turn), I had one guy that said out of ten he bought from me, he had only one blow out. The pens I have turned with cobs do not have very many pith holes to fill in. Just my opinion in the whole matter.
I dont know very much about the vacuum systems though. I actually read one gauge wrong here a couple a weeks ago. I thought it was pulling 50 inches when the best you can actually get is 30. Stupid self was reading the centimeters. I use old aspirators out of hospitals to pull the vacuum.

 

[darbytee]

I use a hand operated brake bleeder pump to pull the vacuum. Costs about $20 at AutoZone.

 

[rtparso]

Well I haven’t done any stabilizing YET, but when I was a mechanic we sometimes used an old Freon pump out of a refrigerator. We got them for free from old refrigerator repair shops. Find one were someone broke a coil.

 

[dado]

As I mentioned in my posting, I'm new to penturning and to using this computer but I wanted to express my sincere thanks to all you who were so nice to take time out of your day to help me with my problem. I now know how to do this and I know it would have either cost me a small fortune or taken me a long time to learn how if I had done it on my own. Thanks.