Wood Stabiliser

[PhillipM]

Well I am going to try thinning it out with IPA so I don't think I'll be buying a posh version.

Poundlands finest I should expect!

I wouldn't, poundlands finest is mainly low grade recycled resins with a splash of virgin to make sure it goes - and half full of bulking agents and thickeners.
Get a small bottle of finishing resin from a model shop or an infusion resin from a composites place, it'll be 100x thinner to start with a save a lot of hassle.

 

[Screwdriver]

Can you post the model number etc of the pump or photo the data plate please ?

It's an adixen rotary vane pump, Pascal 2005 C1. Read all about it:

https://www.lesker.com/newweb/vacuum_pumps/pdf/manuals/adixenmanual20052021.pdf

Why do you ask??

 

[Screwdriver]

I wouldn't, poundlands finest is mainly low grade recycled resins with a splash of virgin to make sure it goes - and half full of bulking agents and thickeners.
Get a small bottle of finishing resin from a model shop or an infusion resin from a composites place, it'll be 100x thinner to start with a save a lot of hassle.

Fairynuff. My first proposed batch will be some time off but I might try "seasoning" some cherry plum in a vacuum to see what happens. Its currently only 10-11% moisture so pretty dry. I believe I want to get it down to 8-9% for joinery, little boxes etc. I *think** holding it in a vacuum might help some of the moisture escape, don't know it that is a "thing" but worth trying I guess. Better than a slow cook (in a gas oven) anyway.

Cherry plum should not require stabilising anyway but I take on board what you say about cheapo epoxy. Plus received wisdom tells me IPA will severely affect the curing of the epoxy. Some testing may be required...

 

[PhillipM]

Holding a vacuum to get water to boil out is definately a thing, do the same thing for drying oils out, etc.

 

[Screwdriver]

Holding a vacuum to get water to boil out is definately a thing, do the same thing for drying oils out, etc.

Is what I was thinking and it turns out it is a "thing", a good thing too! Developed in the early 1900's but not really used much until recently according to this article:

Vacuum Drying of Wood—State of the Art - Current Forestry Reports

In this paper, we review the literature published on vacuum drying of wood. Vacuum drying is not a new technology, and its use for drying wood has been suggested since the early 1900s. Technologies for vacuum drying of wood can be classified by the heating method used. In this paper, we define...

link.springer.com

The bonus is: much quicker, less warping and it will hold it's colour. Sounds ideal for my purposes, small bits of knife scale material, still not quite seasoned. I may have to fix up that old vacuum chamber pronto!

 

[DAPPH]

It's an adixen rotary vane pump, Pascal 2005 C1. Read all about it:

https://www.lesker.com/newweb/vacuum_pumps/pdf/manuals/adixenmanual20052021.pdf

Why do you ask??

Once I get back on my feet from this diabetic A&E visit Emergency of late , I'd like to explore /develop casting more than where I'm presently at . it looks a decent bit of kit , read the info sheets , pleaed to see it is available as a 240 volt version

 

[Screwdriver]

Once I get back on my feet from this diabetic A&E visit Emergency of late , I'd like to explore /develop casting more than where I'm presently at . it looks a decent bit of kit , read the info sheets , pleaed to see it is available as a 240 volt version

It is a VERY decent piece of kit, way overspecced really for my needs. It will pull under a micron of vacuum (!) but this particular type is (I believe) more specialised for use with noxious chemicals, weird gasses etc. I was extremely lucky to get my hands on it but if I was looking to buy one, I don't think anything of this quality would be on my list.

The fact that it can pull a vacuum so quickly is a massive bonus though, especially for use in vacuum forming (once I build a jig for that). Thinking out loud here, vac forming knife sheaths is an idea that just occurred and I wonder out loud how that might even work with leather...

As we speak I am trying to find some ISO-KR fittings just to plug it in. I might have to make something because that's lab standard stuff and is not cheap!

I am excited to get going with this though; never had the facility to play with a "medium (fine) vacuum" (I really, really want to call it a "hard vacuum" but @timgunn1962 will drop a geek bomb on me if I do that again...) It's all new to me but 1 micron is a very (very) low pressure.

Just to explain what I learned today: 1 atm is 760mm of mercury and 1 micron is a vacuum which will only support one thousandths of a mm of mercury compared to "zero". Chasing the last millionth is the reserve of molecular flow regimes (whatever that means...) I get that from the spec which says 3.75·10-4 torr which (I hope!) converts to less than 1 micron of mercury. I am not entirely certain the table that figure comes from is the right number. I have linked to the spec sheet if anyone wants to put me right but anyhow, just goes to show this particular device is overkill for my purposes. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As Mae West once said "too much of a good thing can be wonderful".

 

[Seadog]

Leather is porous.

 

[Screwdriver]

Leather is porous.

I'd vacuum bag it or similar.

 

[Seadog]

A simple solution

 

[Bluemotion]

What’s meant by stabilising wood? Thought I’d hook up to this thread. I ask that as I’m on with restoring a couple of old ‘yellow’ pine doors and it seems kind of dark damp on a few areas.

They feel clammy and I’ve washed the areas in thinners in case it was resin but not made any difference then i cooked it with a hot air gun which dried it nicely but I don’t think that’ll be good enough long term as it’s only the surface. The house they live in is warm and dry before any one states it humidity.

 

[Screwdriver]

Stabilising is a method for saturating "punky" soft wood with a hardenable resin.

If the wood is damp, it needs to be dried and if it's gone soft or rotten, there's another more suitable type of treatment like Rustins Wood Hardener.

 

[Bluemotion]

Ok good to know. I’ll study it.