Stabilizing wood at home. - Salad in a jar?

Might be somewhat effective on softer less dense materials. I don't know how much vacuum you would get from the plastic pump. I saw a similar one using a harbor freight break bleeder that is probably much more effective. There is also a youtube video of someone heating the mason jar with stabilizing fluid and wood in the jar and just sealing when hot (just like the traditional canning method) that seemed to work.
 
Google, Cactus Juice. I have seen decent results from this stuff done at home without messing with strong chemicals.
 
you definitely want to get the highest vacuum you can get and sustain for a 48 hr period, some how I don't think the salad sucker would get past 20 inch of mercury, the harbor freight hand Pump max's out at around 25 inches of Mercury

I hooked two fridge compressors in series and can get 28.8ish which is probably about the best you will get without buying an expensive pump
 
If I were to attempt this, I *certainly* wouldn't use a glass jar. If something goes south, I don't want to have to pick shards out of my legs and arms.

I'm just sayin'...

TedP
 
Exploding jars with a vacuum is a myth, I suppose you could Implode a glass jar, but with the jar full of liquid the glass has no room to accelerate, and would be unable to reach leg and arm puncturing speed I kinda proved that with this video

Put a towel under the jar so the mess would be easy to clean up if the the jar did fracture, also you will notice that no liquid leaked from the jar onto my work bench, however I would suggest that you don't use mayo jars the glass is very thin, instead take a trip to grandma nana's house and get a canning jar they are designed to hold up to high pressure ( boiling liquid at 250 degrees) and vacuum

WARNING DO NOT PRESSURIZE A GLASS JAR WITH COMPRESSED AIR, IF YOU DO YOU WILL BE PICKING GLASS OUT OF YOUR FACE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-PeUVYcfQw
 
Of the home based stabilization methods, I have heard repeatedly that cactus juice is the best method, so I bought the resin and a chamber. I used a refrigerator compressor as a vacuum pump but it burned out after I sucked some juice into it. I bought a HVAC vacuum pump (gets to 27.2 inches, max at my altitude is 27.8) and the system works pretty darn well for the spalted poplar,box maple, and mahogany I have been using. Here's the rub, between the setup, resin, toaster oven to cure the blocks, and odds and ends, I spent $500.00 to do about 20 handle blocks. That price will come down over time as the chamber and pump were a one time purchase. Do you plan to stabilize enough handles to make up that price? I could have sent a lot of handle blocks out to stabilize professionally for that money and not be limited to the woods I can do. For me, the turnaround time to the US for stabilizing was a barrier, so I went with my own system knowing I am limited to porous or otherwise easy to stabilize woods. For what it is, it works well.
 
I decided to give this technique a shot last night. To my surprise it seems to be working. I don't know what the negative pressure is, but I pumped that jar lid until I broke a sweat. A lot of bubbles were coming out of the wood with each additional pump. I left the Jar in a vacuumed state and wood bubbling furiousely as the air was being pushed out, over night. This morning, there were no bubbles coming out of the wood. I gave it a few more pumps to see if any air will come out. Nothing. It seems that the hardener has fully soaked through the wood. I left it be for the day. I will take the wood out later and dry it.

Is there a way to tell if the wood actually hardened after it dried? I imagine it wood feel heavier.
 
I experimented with a couple of pieces of pine after I put my rig together and after 10 hrs at full vacuum the fluid had only soaked about half way through, if your handle was say 90% shaped a 24 hr soak would be ok, half way through the wood is deeper then any painted on/ hand rubbed finish will ever be

I think I read somewhere that the minwax stuff only contains about 20% of the actual resin the rest is solvents to help with deeper penitaration
 
bubbles don't have to mean the air is coming out of the wood.

If you draw enough vacuum, you can boil any liquid.
 
Well, in fact I am using Mixwax. It's the only thing that is readily available to me and cheap too. Only $7 a can. I figured I'll give it a shot on some cheap ebay maple scales. Are there any other products that one can pickup at a local store around town or is everything online these days?
 
check and see if you have a local hobby wood working store, the one here in grand rapids carries a full line of stabilizing supplies... for a BIG price, the fluid itself is a good price though
 
shurik6 said:
Well, in fact I am using Mixwax. It's the only thing that is readily available to me and cheap too. Only $7 a can. I figured I'll give it a shot on some cheap ebay maple scales. Are there any other products that one can pickup at a local store around town or is everything online these days?
Click to expand...

The Minwax stuff is junk. Apparently what you want is Cactus Juice. Anything useful would almost certainly come from a specialty store, not a Home Depot, Lowes or Ace.
 
Minwax is nothing at all like professional stabilization.
I've done some spalted maple with minwax and a brake vacuum pump. The wood came out a good bit harder than before, but FAR from what you'd get with real stabilizer. It didn't really gain much weight since most of the liquid evaporated from the scales during drying. I shaped the handles before "stabilizing" them to get deeper penetration. I also used Tru Oil to finish and further harden the surface. It turned out decent but I don't know how it's going to last in the long run.
If you're buying wood it's best to spend the extra bucks on stabilized wood.
If you've got a good source of cheap/free wood, then some Cactus Juice, along with a real vacuum pump and a proper vacuum tank might be a good investment.
 
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shurik6 said:
I mean the bubbles that were clearly visible coming directly out of the wood pores.
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The moisture in the wood ( as well as any trapped air) will boil at low pressure. A large part of what is seen as "bubbles" is the moisture and other things in the wood vaporizing.


I used to do this trick when I would give the Cub Scouts or Brownies a tour:
When demonstrating the vacuum chamber used in casting, I would put in a plastic cup with about 1" of ice water in it. I would turn on the vacuum pump and in a few moments it would boil so vigorously that it foamed over. I would vent the tank, grab the cup, and toss the water in a spray over the group.. They would scream, thinking it would be boiling hot...until the spray hit them and they realized it was still ice cold. Then I would teach them about the Ideal Gas law, and how even frozen water can boil if you lower the pressure enough.
 
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