Douglas Fir Bark Blanks

[Bowl Slinger]

I took down a 40" dia Douglas Fir tree for my winter firewood. The bark on this bad boy is 2" think. As I was splitting it large sections of the bark was flying off so I decided to slice some into blanks. The patterns are very unique and I believe they will make outstanding pens.
Anyone have any suggestions other than Cactus Juice for stabilizing bark?

 

[jthompson1995]

I have turned walnut bark before without stabilizing and, though a little nerve wracking, it worked. Some really neat patterns there. Suggestions from my experience: don't try to stabilize with ca as you go, it doesn't soak in and ends up chipping off and taking chunks of bark with it. Leave it a little more proud of the bushings and sand to the final dimension, this will help prevent a chunk of bark catching and flying off rift when you get to your finAl dimension.

 

[Tim'sTurnings]

I had some beautiful Walnut bark once, very thick, very nice figure in it. I cut it up into blanks but was afraid to turn it because it was awful lightweight and thought it would probably blow up, so I tossed it.
If I had some now I would stabilize it with cactus juice and vacuum system that I have now. I didn't have my stabilization system then.
Good luck, I don't know how you would stabilize yours, I just know that I would do the cactus juice route with mine if I found some again.

 

[jetcn1]

You can pm kennedy custom calls on this site , he has a heat cure resin (ZK TR90) that works very well and priced very well . Troy

 

[BassBlaster]

Ive turned pine bark before and it makes a very interesting pen. I just use thin CA to make it turnable. I personally wouldnt mess with having it stabelized unless you were going to turn a whole bunch of em.

 

[MartinPens]

I would probably just do some heavy covering with thin CA glue. That's a lot of CA, but that's what I use on natural edge bowls to keep the bark on and it works well.