Stabilizing / dye question

[InkyMike]

Howdy all

I finished up two different rounds of stabilizing this morning. First two I've ever run.

I did a round of red with cherry blanks, and a round of blue with psalter pecan. The pecan came out great - the cherry, I have a question or two on:

I'm going to turn it this evening, but looking at a cross cut, the color didn't seem to penetrate very consistently - I left them in the chamber a little over 4 hours - the bubbles stopped about two hours in. I then let them soak overnight - probably 14 hours total soaking time after vacuum. Vacuum was good in the chamber - -29 Hg the entire time.

I'm wondering if I should have vacuumed longer even though the bubbles stopped?

 

[Mortalis]

I feel your title should have mentioned dying while stabilizing.
I haven't tried to dye blanks while stabilizing but my wild guess would be the spalted pecan soaked up dye because of the spalting causing soft areas that are less dense and the Cherry being a very close grain and non spalted didnt soak in the dye because of its density.
Wild Guess

 

[InkyMike]

I feel your title should have mentioned dying while stabilizing.
I haven't tried to dye blanks while stabilizing but my wild guess would be the spalted pecan soaked up dye because of the spalting causing soft areas that are less dense and the Cherry being a very close grain and non spalted didnt soak in the dye because of its density.
Wild Guess

I edited my title - and I suspect you're correct, but I'll be curious to see what others have to say about remedying it. If you look at the pieces, the dye clearly made it to the center - but some of the rings appear to have not taken the color (which also makes me wonder if they took any resin at all)

 

[greenacres2]

I'd tend to agree with Mortalis. Four hours may have been short, hard to say. I usually go longer in vac, and also in soak, but that's me. My personal sense on the amount of absorption is that if I :
Dry the blanks as I should and,
Vac them asi should and,
Soak as I should, then…
The parts of the wood that need Cactus Juice will get what they need. The dye comes with that. I know if no way to control that, so I have to embrace it—or live in frustration.
One of the cool things about dying/stabilizing burls is that the absorption is all over the map, and can create awesome variations.
Good luck.
earl

 

[InkyMike]

I'd tend to agree with Mortalis. Four hours may have been short, hard to say. I usually go longer in vac, and also in soak, but that's me. My personal sense on the amount of absorption is that if I :
Dry the blanks as I should and,
Vac them asi should and,
Soak as I should, then…
The parts of the wood that need Cactus Juice will get what they need. The dye comes with that. I know if no way to control that, so I have to embrace it—or live in frustration.
One of the cool things about dying/stabilizing burls is that the absorption is all over the map, and can create awesome variations.
Good luck.
earl

You're both probably right about the time - I just went by the lack of bubbles coming out in the chamber.

It turned out a really cool design. I'm just puzzled how some of the inner rings (looking at the cross cut) got dye/resin but rings outside of them did not.

In the end, the result was cool and I'll try it differently next time.

 

[PatrickR]

Looks good to me.
The dye will only go where the CJ goes. The dense areas don't have room for the CJ. If you want a solid color through and through start with a wood that is evenly textured and light, soft maple etc.

 

[InkyMike]

Looks good to me.
The dye will only go where the CJ goes. The dense areas don't have room for the CJ. If you want a solid color through and through start with a wood that is evenly textured and light, soft maple etc.

Thanks - this wood was by request - I just figured I'd add a little color to make it pop. I'll post some photos as soon as I get the finial done.