The above advice of all 3 are great. I want to try the MEK and styrofoam but I cannot find MEK here. One key is vac for 20 to 30 minutes, release, vac again and then pressure for a couple of hours - to over night.
Several things may affect the process.
IF the wood has been air dried and still has moisture inside, that can prevent penetration. If a blank is placed in the microwave for 10 seconds on high and it gets hot, then it probably has moisture in it. "Dry" blanks don't get as hot as fast because they don't have the moisture. It is the moisture in the wood that starts the heat interaction process, IMO. And, this moisture is hard to replace with stabilizer as long as the moisture is still there.
The watery thin does better IMO at penetrating. I do not have a professional set up and can tell that my blanks have been stabilized but not nearly like professionally done blanks. They do well enough for me and what I need to do. My main reason to start the stabilizing was to stop bleed over from bloodwood to holly. It has been effective for me.
In colder weather and in temps below 60 - 70 degrees inside a "shop" or garage, the ability to penetrate will be less because the viscosity is greatly affected by the temperature.
I did some casting a couple of weeks ago for the first time and even under 80 lb pressure, I had bubbles with two different types of casting material. I microwaved the next batch until the mix was about 90 degrees (10 - 12 seconds), mixed it and it was watery thin. No bubbles even when not putting into the pressure pot. The difference was the viscosity because of the temperature.
- Because of this, I mentioned the temperature of the stabilizing mix as well as the other things.
One other thing I am learning is that this is not a "list the steps one by one" issue because of different situations, environments and mixes. And I do like experimenting to see what works and does not - when I have time.