1dweeb
Member
After getting my Cactus Juice Stabilizing system from Curtis, I decided to put it to the test. I used a harbor freight 3 CFM vacuum pump and I bought a toaster oven from Walmart to bake these in. I didn't spring for the relief valve from Curtis as I thought I had one that would work, turns out mine wouldn't work so I had to go to Home Depot for those parts. If I had to order all over again I would just purchase the valve with the system (it would have been cheaper). I stabilized approximately 30 blanks with some being half blanks. The system worked as advertised and due to the large amount of foaming at the beginning of the cycle, I can't imagine not having the relief valve. I used a variety of blanks to stabilize and some seemed to work better than others. I did buy me a black light so that I could check for penetration of the solution. I have not been disappointed so far with the results. The Turkish Walnut blanks that I stabilized were very impressive in the way they took the solution and the way that they finished up on the lathe after baking. The Afzelia blanks seemed to take the solution well but the wood has wider cell structure and thus had a few surface voids after turning that had to be sealed with CA. The Amboyna Burl seemed to take the solution and turned okay but I still had to fill an inclusion in the blank with CA. All blanks polished up well after turning. If you have ever turned the stabilized blanks from AS then you will know what to expect with these. I am not sure that these are as good as the ones from AS but they seem to be on par with them so far with the ones that I have turned. One thing I did notice was that the Cocobolo and HRB blanks do not like this resin. They come out of the oven a sticky mess. I have often heard that these don't stabilize well and now I can tell you what that means.
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