Harvey Schneider
08-16-2010, 9:28 PM
Curiosity got the better of me so I bought a gallon of the Cedar based wood stabilizer and tried it.
I turned three bowls with it, all from the same slab of Maple. The wood was recently cut and very wet. It measured beyond 37% moisture content which is the limit of my meter and was wet enough that mold was growing on it's surface.
The three bowls were 14", 14.5" and 11" in diameter. The 11" was a core taken from the 14.5" bowl. The two larger bowls were rough turned and then soaked in the wood stabilizer for eight hours. After their soak, they were allowed to air dry for 72 hours before any more turning was done. The 11" bowl was turned to 1/4 inch thickness and was basically finished except for final sanding before it was soaked in the stabilizer.
The first bowl, the 14" was mounted to an Oak block that is drilled and tapped to fit the spindle of my lathe. The block is glued to the bowl with thick CA. I was concerned because soaking such an arrangement in DNA usually results in the block and bowl separating because the expansion of the two woods when soaked doesn't match. Soaking in the Cedar based wood stabilizer did not cause any problem with expansion. I soaked the bowls after rough turning to conserve on the amount of stabilizer needed. On removing the bowl from the soak, it was obvious, from it's weight, that the Maple had soaked up a lot of the stabilizer. On returning the liquid stabilizer to it's bottle I found that approximately one cup had been consumed. On removing the bowl from the soak I put it on the lathe and checked concentricity. The diameter across grain was equal to the diameter with the grain to within the thickness of the pencil line I applied prior to soak. The lip of the bowl had curled up on one side by about 3/16". That isn't bad for a 14" bowl and was easily corrected.
The second bowl, the 11" core was allowed to dry 48 hours after soaking and was sanded starting with 150 grit. The sanding dust was coarse and heavy. The residual oils in the wood easily damaged the sandpaper's adhesive and I used more paper than I normally would, although the time to sand was substantially reduced. This bowl measured 1/4" smaller in diameter across the grain than it did with the grain. The lip had about a 3/32 warp to it. I did not make any attempt to correct the bowl's shape because the error was not readily apparent to the eye.
The third bowl, 14.5" is still being final turned. This bowl has a tenon turned on it's foot to allow it to be mounted in a chuck. The results thus far are near identical to the 14" bowl. The one difference is that the bowl did not curl at all. So this one did not change in size or shape.
Base on these experiences I would say that the product does what the manufacturer claims. It produces stable wood in about three days time.
Other observations.
The stabilizer cause the wood to darken substantially. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The color patterns that came out are interesting and pleasing to my eye. Without the stabilizer, they might have developed over time with exposure to UV, but they were evident immediately on removal from the soak.
After three days drying there was still a significant amount of the stabilizer in the wood. The center of the bowl felt cool to the touch while the rim did not. In spite of this continuing evaporation the bowls appear to be stable.
The stabilizer appears to have caused the wood to have a texture similar to old very dry wood. It cuts and sands differently than normally dried wood. When tuning even with a very sharp bowl gouge, the shavings are short and crumbly. The pores of the end grain are open and tubular in appearance, as if they have not shrunk during drying.
The wood accepted BLO and Tung oil finish (a varnish) well. Tung oil finish seeped through the wood of the 11" bowl so that oil standing in the bowl quickly wet the outside of the bowl. The 14" bowl soaked up a great deal of BLO. It had sponge like properties. The appearance of the bowls finish is quite acceptable.
The odor of the Cedar oil gets to be overpowering after three days in the workshop.
For these moderately large bowls the cost of the stabilizer was about $5.00 per bowl.
Although I consider the product to be useable, I am not sure that I am happy enough with it to use it on a regular basis. It changes the process of turning enough that I have to consider if I will enjoy it.
Harvey in Southbury, CT
I turned three bowls with it, all from the same slab of Maple. The wood was recently cut and very wet. It measured beyond 37% moisture content which is the limit of my meter and was wet enough that mold was growing on it's surface.
The three bowls were 14", 14.5" and 11" in diameter. The 11" was a core taken from the 14.5" bowl. The two larger bowls were rough turned and then soaked in the wood stabilizer for eight hours. After their soak, they were allowed to air dry for 72 hours before any more turning was done. The 11" bowl was turned to 1/4 inch thickness and was basically finished except for final sanding before it was soaked in the stabilizer.
The first bowl, the 14" was mounted to an Oak block that is drilled and tapped to fit the spindle of my lathe. The block is glued to the bowl with thick CA. I was concerned because soaking such an arrangement in DNA usually results in the block and bowl separating because the expansion of the two woods when soaked doesn't match. Soaking in the Cedar based wood stabilizer did not cause any problem with expansion. I soaked the bowls after rough turning to conserve on the amount of stabilizer needed. On removing the bowl from the soak, it was obvious, from it's weight, that the Maple had soaked up a lot of the stabilizer. On returning the liquid stabilizer to it's bottle I found that approximately one cup had been consumed. On removing the bowl from the soak I put it on the lathe and checked concentricity. The diameter across grain was equal to the diameter with the grain to within the thickness of the pencil line I applied prior to soak. The lip of the bowl had curled up on one side by about 3/16". That isn't bad for a 14" bowl and was easily corrected.
The second bowl, the 11" core was allowed to dry 48 hours after soaking and was sanded starting with 150 grit. The sanding dust was coarse and heavy. The residual oils in the wood easily damaged the sandpaper's adhesive and I used more paper than I normally would, although the time to sand was substantially reduced. This bowl measured 1/4" smaller in diameter across the grain than it did with the grain. The lip had about a 3/32 warp to it. I did not make any attempt to correct the bowl's shape because the error was not readily apparent to the eye.
The third bowl, 14.5" is still being final turned. This bowl has a tenon turned on it's foot to allow it to be mounted in a chuck. The results thus far are near identical to the 14" bowl. The one difference is that the bowl did not curl at all. So this one did not change in size or shape.
Base on these experiences I would say that the product does what the manufacturer claims. It produces stable wood in about three days time.
Other observations.
The stabilizer cause the wood to darken substantially. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The color patterns that came out are interesting and pleasing to my eye. Without the stabilizer, they might have developed over time with exposure to UV, but they were evident immediately on removal from the soak.
After three days drying there was still a significant amount of the stabilizer in the wood. The center of the bowl felt cool to the touch while the rim did not. In spite of this continuing evaporation the bowls appear to be stable.
The stabilizer appears to have caused the wood to have a texture similar to old very dry wood. It cuts and sands differently than normally dried wood. When tuning even with a very sharp bowl gouge, the shavings are short and crumbly. The pores of the end grain are open and tubular in appearance, as if they have not shrunk during drying.
The wood accepted BLO and Tung oil finish (a varnish) well. Tung oil finish seeped through the wood of the 11" bowl so that oil standing in the bowl quickly wet the outside of the bowl. The 14" bowl soaked up a great deal of BLO. It had sponge like properties. The appearance of the bowls finish is quite acceptable.
The odor of the Cedar oil gets to be overpowering after three days in the workshop.
For these moderately large bowls the cost of the stabilizer was about $5.00 per bowl.
Although I consider the product to be useable, I am not sure that I am happy enough with it to use it on a regular basis. It changes the process of turning enough that I have to consider if I will enjoy it.
Harvey in Southbury, CT