Wood Hardener vs Resin - Test and results

[corbybenderart]

I thought I'd share a thing I recently tried. I used a food vacuum saver device, a jar, and some Minwax Wood Hardener to attempt to stabilize some buckeye burl. I wasn't sure how it would turn out compared to wood that had been stabilized using cactus juice but I was looking for a cheaper way to do what I wanted. I made a blog post with pics and the results that you can read about here if you want: https://mywood.shop/post/714925615348/how-to-stabilize-wood-cheaply

Really I am hoping this just saves others time for trying the same thing. While it works in theory, the wood sucked up the hardener, the dried wood after hardener did not at all feel, look, or turn like resin stabilized wood. So save yourself some trouble and give this a look. It made a beautiful pen, yes (several in fact) but if I had the extra cash laying around, I'd hit up TurnTex.com and get their system + cactus juice. Thanks for looking.

 

[FGarbrecht]

Your blog post seems enthusiastic about the cheap method you describe but here you say that you'd go for the vac system / cactus juice method. I'm confused; if the cheap method produces beautiful blanks that are stable to turning, why not use it?

 

[Dehn0045]

my understanding is that MW wood hardener is basically a solution of dissolved plexiglass in acetone. It is somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% acetone. So, all but 30% of what you get into the wood ends up evaporating. CJ on the other hand is cured, so essentially 100% of what you get in the wood stays there (minus squeeze out), obviously a big difference. CJ is about $17 per pint and MW is $13, but the MW is only 30% active so the actual cost of MW is $43 per pint of active material.

Another issue is that CJ is very low vapor pressure so it doesn't boil when you pull a deep vacuum on it, the acetone in MW will not allow for deep vacuum so penetration is limited because the acetone starts boiling before you get the vacuum very low. Its also a little dangerous to have a bunch of acetone vapors around electrical equipment.

You don't need a professional stabilizing vacuum chamber to use CJ, a pickle jar works just fine. Then figure $50 for a cheap vacuum pump and $50 for a toaster oven (cheaper if you can find a used one). All in you can be stabilizing with CJ for less than $150 (plus the cost of resin). For small blanks its a no-brainer if you want to DIY, but you probably need to do 100 blanks or more to make it worthwhile. In reality, getting blanks professionally stabilized is probably the best route for a small number of blanks (but where is the fun in that!).

Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience and saving others from doing the testing themselves. It takes a lot of courage to write-up a failure (or even something that is only a partial victory). I think MW wood hardener and others like pentacryl have their place in woodworking, but they probably aren't the best choice for penturning and knifemaking.

 

[MRDucks2]

In all honesty, I have recently let some larger pieces of wood sit in Cactus Juice and allowed capillary action to draw it into the wood. On the good side, it worked much better than I thought. On the negative side, the variation is much greater in how much uptake you get.

basically, I had several containers of left over CJ I did not want to mess with when moving to a different house. So, I took some very dry hackberry peppermill blanks and set them in it. Sucked it up like a sponge over a few days (very low humidity in the shop). Cured well and turns nicely. All are heavier and show color (dyed CJ remnants). Concentration of pigment penetration does vary as well as overall uptake. Only 1 of 4 doubled in weight.

 

[corbybenderart]

Your blog post seems enthusiastic about the cheap method you describe but here you say that you'd go for the vac system / cactus juice method. I'm confused; if the cheap method produces beautiful blanks that are stable to turning, why not use it?

I really think that the blanks would have ended up looking and feeling the same even if I had not tried this cheap method of "stabilizing". I say at the end that I don't think it is superior to the CJ method. But after rereading how I wrote it, you are right, I think it starts out feeling like "Hey I found a cheaper way!" and ends with "na, don't do this". I'm going to go back to the blog post and update it at the start so it doesn't come across deceiving, that was not my intent. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll fix it.

 

[corbybenderart]

I really think that the blanks would have ended up looking and feeling the same even if I had not tried this cheap method of "stabilizing". I say at the end that I don't think it is superior to the CJ method. But after rereading how I wrote it, you are right, I think it starts out feeling like "Hey I found a cheaper way!" and ends with "na, don't do this". I'm going to go back to the blog post and update it at the start so it doesn't come across deceiving, that was not my intent. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll fix it.

I've added to the post to hopefully clarify this for anyone that finds it later. Thanks again for pointing this out. The intent was to show it didn't really work like CJ and a real stabilization process. I hope with these updates I've fixed that right up front.

 

[More4dan]

I've started with MinWax and a vacuum jar and a brake bleeder and the results were okay. I've used Cactus Juice and an AC vacuum pump and the result was night and day better.

The MinWax coated the wood fibers with resin while the CJ not only coated the fibers but also filled the voids between the fibers "gluing" it all together. The CJ treated blanks were much denser and more importantly stronger.

Danny


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