Where are the clouds?

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Garry Hirsch

Garry Hirsch

Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2011
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19
Location
Umatilla, Florida
Purchased these red cedar blanks along with 11 diiferent species on Ebay.

Turned for slimline and did ca finish and lo and behold I FOUND THE CLOUDS!!

However I do not want the clouds, I want a nice sunny pen with no clouds.

Moisture in the pen blanks?? The blanks have been stored in a box in my garage/shop for 6 months or more and temps have been in the high 90's for some time now.

Have done ca finish on ebony and other woods and have had nothing but a nice shiny pen, any idea on how I can work around this problem as I would surely like to have some nice shiny red cedar pens.

I will respond in advance with heart felt gratitiude to any and all answers especially if one of them work!:wink:

Yours,
Garry
 

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Did you wipe the blanks down with acetone before the CA? I ask because I turned some ceder and did not wipe it down with acetone. The finish was cloudy. Not THAT cloudy though. Someone mentioned to me that the natural oils in ceder will cloud CA similar to the oil in cocobolo.
 
Yup Cedar is oily and oil and CA get cloudy, DNA or Acetone, some times if I'm not being a cheapskate, I'll even use accelerator, just let any of them dry about 5 or 10 minutes. But be warned in a few months or even a year later the clouds MAY appear, sometimes not but sometimes they do
 
Interesting, I've never had any problems with cedar, it's one of my main woods on lures. There is definably some moisture in that blank. I would strip them back down and get a reading if possible.
Cedar will soak up water.
Did you wet sand?
What about the other blanks?
Do they have the cedar smell or something else?
What did the shavings look like?
One thing I have noticed on where I get my cedar. If it was boards, then there is a high chance something at one point was sprayed on them. I don't use any old cedar boards now, all blanks cut from logs.
 
Akula said:
Interesting, I've never had any problems with cedar, it's one of my main woods on lures. There is definably some moisture in that blank. I would strip them back down and get a reading if possible.
Cedar will soak up water.
Did you wet sand?
What about the other blanks?
Do they have the cedar smell or something else?
What did the shavings look like?
One thing I have noticed on where I get my cedar. If it was boards, then there is a high chance something at one point was sprayed on them. I don't use any old cedar boards now, all blanks cut from logs.
Click to expand...

Hi Akula no I did not wet sand until after I had already put 20 coats of ca on the blank, the other blanks smell like cedar should but as I got them on ebay I don't know the history of them. Shavings looked normal and smelled great! I'll try the accelerator first and then see if I can ca them.

Thanks to all who answered!
Garry
 
And just a moment ago I posted to another thread that CA cures over anything. I don't know about your problem, but I learned something today.

In the future, I would try a couple of seal coats of shellac.

Mike
 
I don't put anything on aromatic red cedar pens that I make other than Carnauba wax. I like to keep the smell alive.
 
Different wood same problem did a pen for my pastor today out of acacia wood, called ****tim wood in the KJV Bible that the "Ark of the Covenant" was made from per God's instructions. Same problem as the cedar wood with it clouding up after about 6 coats of ca had been applied with hardener applied after every coat of ca. I sanded the blank down to bare wood again and mm'ed to 12k then 2 coats of ren wax but I would really like to give it a ca finish. Please help!:confused:
 
I had a similar problem with CA the other day when I sprayed it with accelerator. Not sure if I sprayed it to soon or to much but when I did not spray everything was good.
 
Turned a lot of cedar, never had an issue like that. Only a guess but the wood must have been exposed to moisture. My experience says if it was an oil issue it would have dull spots. Cloudy is more typical the result of water.
 
I just found something better than DNA or Acetone to wipe an oily blank down with, nit won't harm the wood, dries nearly instantly even worth a thorough soaking , it's Naphtha. Yes it's not good to breath but then none of the others are either, I got a quart at Lowes, I imagine some can be had cheaper, but it works great.
 
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