Stabilizing Spalted Maple

[TowMater]

New to turning pens but it is very relaxing so I'm ramping up quickly. Turned a few pens with the wife yesterday and got all bold and thought this isn't that hard, let's break out one of those spalted maple blanks and see how we like it.

Needless to say we got down to pretty close of finished product and it came apart.

So I check the library here, see that minwax wood hardener can be used as a stabilizer and picked up a can today.

Now on to my question.....

Do I need to drill out the blanks before hardening or not???

I have about 40 kits coming from AS, and another 10 from a group buy here, but here I sit all kitless with the turning bug biting my rear.....

So do I:

1 Stabilize the whole blank?
2 Drill out the blank to 7mm
3 Wait for the kits to show up, drill them, put the barrel in and then stabilize??

Thanks for any feedback

TM

 

[great12b4ever]

It is best to try to drill out first, that way you get the stabilizing effect from the inside and from the outside. Be careful when drilling, and use a very sharp bit. Also a lot of people cut their blanks about 1/4" long, then drill to the correct depth, and then cut off the blank. This eliminates or minimizes the chance of blowout when the bit is exiting the wood. Others use a scrap piece of wood under the blank with decent results. Some drill on the lathe instead of the drill press. After you ahve stabilized the blank, then you need to re-drill the hole to the correct size and then insert the brass tube. Hope this helps.

Rob

 

[rhahnfl]

I'm trying my first attempt at that very method right now. I got a couple of cans of minwax wood hardener and a large spaghetti sauce jar. I cut the blanks to length and then drilled them. Some I partially turned... just to round. Put them all in the jar and poured on the minwax. Sealed it up and shook gently. The dymondwood ones sank right away but the buckeye ones floated... awhile and they sank too. After work tomorrow I plan on fishing them out of the hardener and hanging on some wire to dry. We'll see how it goes. Good luck!!

 

[redfishsc]

Originally posted by TowMater

New to turning pens but it is very relaxing .....

That ain't gonna last long. The bug has already bit you.



As far as stabilizing, there is a tutorial in the Library about stabilizing with Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane. You could duplicate that one with the wood hardener I would assume.


I have taken some spalted blanks and simply soaked them for a couple weeks in a mixture, equal parts, of boiled linseed oil, turpentine, and real polyurethane (ie, the thicker stuff, not the crappy "fast drying" thinned out stuff from Minwax). It really darkens the blanks a lot and take a while to dry/cure out, but helps a lot.

 

[TowMater]

I may try your recipe, at $9.55 per pint bottle the wood hardener is kinda spendy.

 

[ahoiberg]

another thing you could try is once you get it close to size, obviously not enough to come apart, just drench the living heck out of it with thin CA and let that dry, that should stabilize it enough to finish it. every so often as you finish it, keep drenching it with thin CA...