Vacuum infusing for wood stabilizing

[Quinn McCarthy]

I am in the process of making a vacuum infuser like the one at Joewoodworker web site.

My plan is to use minwax wood hardener. How thick of wood can be stabiized? Say 1 1/2" - 2" wood. How do you know when the stabilizer has penetrated into the center of the wood? Would a dye mixed in at first indicate the penetration of the dye? I would get the more rotten the piece the quicker the penetration would be.

I have done some gravity assistd stabililizing on pen blank size stuff and let them sit a week in that. I am looking to speed that up a bit and graduated to bigger material with the vacuum chamber.

Thanks

Quinn

[Ralph Lindberg]

Quiin, there is at least one good article over at the International Pen Turners forum, you might want to cruise over there and read

[Quinn McCarthy]

I don't have a membership over there.

Quinn

[David E Keller]

You don't have to be a member to read the articles on IAP... I'd check out the library section. BTW, membership is free.

I haven't done any vacuum stabilizing, but I've read a bunch of stuff about it. Obviously some woods don't cooperate with stabilizing, but they're usually the ones you wouldn't want to stabilize anyway(rosewoods, snakewood, ebony, etc.). The more porous the material, the faster the material will penetrate. I think your idea to add a colorant is a good one. The only way I know of to assess penetration would be to cut the piece and check. Looking forward to hearing how you make out with this.

[Quinn McCarthy]

Dave,

You are right about the articles. Gleaned a bit from them. The infuser is almost done. Was a busy weekend here.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks

Quinn

[Chip Sutherland]

I have used Miniwax hardener several times. It penetrates with zero effort for me. I am very interested to see what penetration results you get. I just keep using it whenever I come across soft wood. It's nasty stuff but works well enough for the price. Pentacryl is over my budget.

[neil mackay]

you can improve the penetration by alternating between negative pressure and positive pressure. This gives you the best of two worlds, although it does make the pressure vessel more complicated

[Dan Hintz]

Is this for pen blanks? If so and you're having problem with complete penetration, I suggest giving it a run first, drilling out the middle, then throw it back in the pot for a second run.

[Mark Hazelden]

Quinn,

Please do keep us updated. I'm interested in your results.

[Jim Burr]

IAP will have all you need to know...wrong place for pens. Some stabilization can be done with some thin CA just dribbled on the blank. Serious stabilization can be done in a paint pot or pressure pot with either an acrylic and hardener mix or acetone and polycarbonate mix. A simple pressure pot for 24 hrs is all you need...IAP will verify that.

[Paul Douglass]

Have you checked this stuff out. Might be cheaper that the minwax and is specific for stabilizing wood blanks.

http://www.turntex.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=2132&category_id=144&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=121

[curtis rosche]

you could fill one of those preassure sooker pots and use pressure too

[John Hart]

I've never done it with wood stabilization, but back when I was an engineer, in the aerospace industry, we regularly needed to impregnate porous materials with various types of epoxies and stuff. Always used a vacuum chamber, and our method of knowing was by air bubbles. When the air bubbles stop...yer done. We'd leave stuff in a little extra time just to be sure....but that was just over-cautious.
I'll be very interested to hear how this turns out. :)

[Quinn McCarthy]

Interesting site thanks for the link.

I got the chamber done last night and gave it a test run. There doesn't seem to be any leaks. Stabilizing test tonight.

Thanks

Quinn

[Quinn McCarthy]

I finally got the infusion chamber done. It is simple design with 4" pvc and caps at each end. The test run went great with nothing in it. I have made 2 test runs that created quite a mess in the bottom of the tube with minwax hardener. I have a nalgene bottle that I am using to put the wood and hardener in. THe first run I had full length pen blanks and topped the bottle off with hardened and placed it in the chamber. After 2 hours I took it out and most of the hardeener was in the bottom of the chamber. On the second run I used half blanks that filled the bottle half way and topped then off with hardener. After an hour I opened the chamber and found another mess in the bottom of the chamber again but not as bad because there was less to start with. On the blanks from the first run it doesn't look like there was any penetration of hardener into the wood. The second run actually I had blanks on the bottom of the nalgene bottle in what was left of the hardener. The tube is held vertical by the base. What could be happeneing here.

Help!!!

Quinn

[John Hart]

Quinn, I'd like to see a picture of your setup. Using a vacuum can be finicky and I'd just like to understand better. Sorry, I'm having trouble visualizing it with just a description. Maybe I'm getting old!! :eek::D

[Quinn McCarthy]

194858194857Here are the pictures of the infuser I built.

194856

Thanks much.

Quinn

[John Hart]

Quinn, I think I'm unclear about the purpose of the nalgene bottle. It seems that there may be a pressure differential created by having it there, and the desire for the fluid to move when vacuum is applied.

It seems to me you may have greater success by eliminating that bottle and putting your blanks and fluid in the bottom of the chamber.

[John Hart]

I just got to thinking again :eek:

Maybe it's not the little bottle, but the top that's on it. It seems that the dynamics that are going on....or that should occur, is that the wood should be submersed in fluid....then the vacuum applied for some predetermined amount of time....say...1 hour. During that hour, all the air and moisture inside the wood will be evacuated into the fluid and rise to the top...out of the way. Then....when vacuum is released, it will create a high pressure in the fluid, relative to the low pressure now inside the wood. At that time, the fluid will move into the wood to fill that vacuum....so I would think it should sit in the fluid, after vacuum release, for another hour.

Does that make sense?

[David E Keller]

I'm not a physicist, but I think the problem is with the expansion of the liquid under vacuum. Most of the homemade stabilizing rigs i've seen use a horizontal container and the pen blanks are weighted down in the liquid which covers the blanks but doesn't entirely fill the container. There will be expansion of the fluid plus a lot of bubbles as the air is sucked out of the fluid... I think that's were your mess is coming from.

In other words, I'd try a horizontal container maybe two or three inches deep with only about 1.25 inches of liquid in the bottom including the volume of the blanks. You might check out the thread on 'cactus juice' on IAP done by mesquite man... I think he's even got a couple of youtube videos demonstrating his home stabilizing chamber.

[Quinn McCarthy]

I hope I don't miss any questions. The purpose of the nalgene bottle is to keep things clean and keep the chemical in it from degrading the PVC pipe. On 2 different web sites that I found they both used a bottle inside the vacuum chamber. One of the sites was IAP. They showed bubbling on the can the hardener was in for a few monents. I can easily do a run with no bottle. I am not understanding what a horizontal container would buy you. I could make a new container out of 3" PVC that is 18-20" long with an open end howver it would be sitting vertical but have plenty of room to expand after the vacuum is applied.

Thanks

Quinn

[John Hart]

Yup...I don't see that a horizontal orientation would do anything unless it facilitated full coverage of the fluid....As full coverage would be key to success. It does seem that a cover on the bottle would invite a pressure differential, which probably explains the mess in the bottom of the chamber, as David noted. the more I thought about it on the way home, I can see the bottle being helpful to keeping your chamber clean, but the cover might just be a problem.

[David E Keller]

That should work, Quinn. I agree that vertical or horizontal shouldn't matter. What matters is the ability to completely submerge the blanks while allowing room for the solution to expand. Not sure why I didn't just type that the first time?!?

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Like has been stated, your problem is the Minwax Wood Hardener is boiling out of the bottle that you have inside and basically boiling over. Minwax Wood Hardener is 72% acetone, 3% Methanol, and 25% proprietary hardener. most likely acrylic of some type. The boiling point of Acetone is well below room temperature while under vacuum. I had a chart on it but can not put my hands on it right at the moment to give the specific temperature.

Also, for what it is worth, it is NOT a good idea to use Minwax Wood Hardener with vacuum. The lower boiling point is causing the acetone to flash off quickly and that acetone vapor is being sucked through your vacuum pump. Depending on the type of vacuum pump that you have, it may cause very premature failure. Also, the flash point of acetone is -4° F and ignites very easily. The exhaust from your vacuum pump is full of acetone vapor and is a real risk of fire.

This is from Wikipedia regarding the flash point of acetone:
The most common hazard associated with acetone is its extreme flammability. It auto-ignites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-ignition_temperature) at a temperature of 465 °C (869 °F). At temperatures greater than acetone's flash point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_point) of −20 °C (−4 °F), air mixtures of between 2.5% and 12.8% acetone, by volume, may explode or cause a flash fire. Vapors can flow along surfaces to distant ignition sources and flash back. Static (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static) discharge may also ignite acetone vapors.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone#cite_note-msds-12)

[Quinn McCarthy]

That is a good point Curtis. I have a venturi pump kit from venner supplies that I built. I don't remember if I could smell the hardener after the chanber was closed or not. I built a 3" piece of PVC for the inside iinstead of the nalgene bottle. Didn't get the cap sanded so it fit in the 4" PVC yet. I think just about all of the stabilizers that I have come across contain acetone. Might be something I just have to be careful with.

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Quinn,

First, let me preface this reply a little...I am the one who sells MesquiteMan's Cactus Juice in the link provided above. I have been a member here since 2005 but have not posted much in recent years. This is NOT to try to sell you something, but rather to try to help you in your quest so please don't take it that way. I am a woodturner first and foremost and have had a lot of experience with stabilizing over the last 6 years. I have tried everything under the sun and some really off the wall things!

Minwax Wood Hardener (MWH) is not a real good choice for stabilizing blanks since the VAST majority (78.3%) of the bottle of Minwax Wood Hardener is volatile. Leave the cap off of a bottle of Minwax Wood Hardener and in a week, the bottle will be empty with a small amount of solid acrylic at the bottom of the bottle. The solids are what you need to impregnate the blank with and there just is not much in the bottle! As a matter of fact, you can make your own equivalent of MWH by dissolving pieces of plexiglass in acetone and it will work just as good. Still not going to be anywhere near the results you will get with a professional stabilizing solution, however.

The professional stabilizing solutions (what the guys use when you send your blanks off to be stabilized) are proprietary blends of methacrylate esters. These will not "evaporate" and most are non-flammable. Resinol 90c is considered the gold standard in professional stabilizing solutions. It is flammable and is not available to the home hobbyist. There are 4 professional products available for us hobbyists. These are Ultraseal, Resin X, Vortex, and MesquiteMan's Cactus Juice (which I sell). Before I started offering Cactus Juice, I experimented with Ultraseal and have used a fair amount of Resinol 90c. In my honest opinion, Cactus Juice is every bit as good and effective as Resinol 90c. I can not say the same for Ultraseal and have not seen a need to try Resin X or Vortex.

The main reason I decided to start offering Cactus Juice was because I saw a need for a professional quality product for the home hobbyist at a reasonable price. I did some extensive testing before I decided to bring it to market and had GREAT results. I did a test with 8 spalted hackberry pen blanks. Each blank was weighed before stabilizing on a gram scale and the weight was recorded. They were also weighed and recorded after the vacuum cycle and after final curing. The amount of weight gain showed how much cured resin was left in the wood. I saw an average weight gain of 167% with the best being 197% and the worst being 124% The worst started out at 32.7 grams and ended up at 73.4 grams. The best started at 23.3 grams and ended up at 69.4 grams. All of these blanks were were punky and would have been very difficult to even drill. After stabilzing, they were hard as a rock and much more dense.

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

One other thing...you are still going to have problems with the MWH boiling over, even with a cap on your nagalene bottle unless you put the cap on air tight. If you do that, then the vacuum process is not going to do anything! The best option is to make the nagalene bottle much taller than you need so that the MWH has the opportunity to boil up and not overflow your container.

[Dan Hintz]

I won't speculate on why Loctite is so secretive with Resinol 90c, but it's simply a methacrylate. Plenty of suppliers of thermoset methyl methacrylate out there for good prices. Vacuum infuse the blanks, seal them in a plastic bag, then toss in a pot of boiling water to harden.

I haven't tried this myself, but I see nothing wrong with the methodology. This way, you don't have to wait for the blanks to set up while in the vacuum chamber. Vacuum for 5-10 minutes, then throw in the next batch. Since it's a thermoset, what you don't use in one batch can be poured into the next batch.

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Dan,

MMA (methyl methacrylate) is NOT the same thing as methacrylate esters. MMA is very flammable with a flash point of 62° F and is also considered a hazardous chemical. It used to be used in the fake nail industry but was replaced due to skin absorption and inhalation health issues. It is a pretty nasty chemical.

[Quinn McCarthy]

This has been a wonderful thread to watch and I learned a lot from it. The reason I am using the minwax is because say it work great for stabilizing wood and is readily available at most hardware stores. I definately will give cactus juice a whirl. I still have some tweaking to do on the vacuum chamber. Hopefully tonight I can make another test run with the 3" PVC inner tube. I also found some glass flower vases online that will work as an inner container to keep things clean.

Quinn

[Dan Hintz]

MMA (methyl methacrylate) is NOT the same thing as methacrylate esters. MMA is very flammable with a flash point of 62° F and is also considered a hazardous chemical. It used to be used in the fake nail industry but was replaced due to skin absorption and inhalation health issues. It is a pretty nasty chemical.
MMA is a methyl ester of methacrylic acid (MAA) and is the major component of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) plastics.

MMA was removed from the fake fingernail industry because it was causing allergic reactions, not major health issues. It's hardly any nastier than stuff we use everyday such as acetone (which also has a low flash point). When using chemicals like that you should work with plenty of ventilation and use gloves.

[Quinn McCarthy]

Well I have some good news. I swapped out the nalgene bottle for a 3" piece of PVC pipe about 20" long with a cap on one end. I stabilized some cherry burl bottle stopped blanks. I had about 6" filled up. Didn't want to get it too full right off the bat. Put the vacuum to it for 2 hours. Opened it up and there was no mess at all and the blanks looked and felt real saturated.

Looks like I had some success.

Quinn

[David E Keller]

Congrats, Quinn. I've not done any stabilizing, but I'm anxious to see some photos of your successes(and failures). I know Curtis from the IAP site, and he's a stand up guy. He helped me quite a bit when I was contemplating my Clearvue cyclone... If I ever get a stabilizing setup, I'll probably give the Cactus juice a whirl.

[David E Keller]

MMA is a methyl ester of methacrylic acid (MAA) and is the major component of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) plastics.

MMA was removed from the fake fingernail industry because it was causing allergic reactions, not major health issues. It's hardly any nastier than stuff we use everyday such as acetone (which also has a low flash point). When using chemicals like that you should work with plenty of ventilation and use gloves.

FWIW, I use methyl methacrylate on a weekly basis... That's the 'glue' that's used to implant artificial knees. The formulation we get has a powder and liquid that are mixed under vacuum giving a doughy consistency with about a 10 minute working time... It's hard as a rock in 15 minutes even in the OR where temps tend to be in the lower 60's.

[Dan Hintz]

FWIW, I use methyl methacrylate on a weekly basis... That's the 'glue' that's used to implant artificial knees. The formulation we get has a powder and liquid that are mixed under vacuum giving a doughy consistency with about a 10 minute working time... It's hard as a rock in 15 minutes even in the OR where temps tend to be in the lower 60's.
Yeppers... also used to embed tissues, where I'm most familiar with it. Denture molds are made with it, too. It's not horrible stuff, so I don't know why people think that.

[Neil Pabia]

Having some experience witth wood stabilizing ove rthe years, I have found that the Cactus juice does a great job and was much more cost effective then the Minwax wood hardener. I have also tried some other things but was ripped off big time by a company that claims they make a wood stabilizing setup, and have the solution and are international, it looks like they are a husband and wife scam artist team making unusable kits out of their garage. The Cactus juice is doing what it claims to do and I am going to looking at using it as my only stabilizing agent soon.