No 39 - Spalted Maple Deep Dish

[James Combs]

Spalted maple processed with vacuum and Cactus Juice. This is one of the spalted maple blanks that I found the "antique" barbwire in when I was trimming it up with my band-saw.

I rough cut it and placed in in a bath of Cactus Juice in my new vacuum chamber then processed it through heat per directions. This is the result. It turned great to finish size after the treatment. The only negative is that it didn't take finishing real well, kind of like a plastic bowl would have. I probable could have just sanded it to a very high number, polished it and buffed and it would have looked just as good if not better.

Stats:
Material = Spalted Maple
OD = 7-1/8"
ID = 6-1/2"
Height = 4-1/8"
Depth = 3-3/8" (yep, it's a thick heavy bowl)
Wall = 5/16 at top to 3/4 at bottom
Finish = Satin WOP with a final coat of Danish Natural Oil (the color never really changed from no finish to last coat.

200432200427200429200433200430200428200431200434

C&C Appreciated.

[John Keeton]

JD, that sure is some nice wood. Sounds like one needs to omit finish on these castings/infusions, and just go with a polishing.

[Rich Aldrich]

I really like the wood. The color is nice. I prefer a heavier bowl - actually, I like the bottom a little thicker so the bowl has some balast.

[Steve Schlumpf]

You won't have to worry about the bowl blowing away! Sure is some pretty wood - color and spalt lines! So, is the bowl waterproof as a result of using the Cactus Juice?

[Scott Hackler]

Very nice bowl. Just big enough for popcorn!!!

[James Combs]

You won't have to worry about the bowl blowing away! Sure is some pretty wood - color and spalt lines! So, is the bowl waterproof as a result of using the Cactus Juice?

I was sitting here reading your post Steve with the bowl and a bottle of water within reach so I poured about 2-3 table spoons into it and... At first it beaded up then I rubbed it around the bottom of the bowl and it appeared to sink into a couple spots right in the bottom. I dried it out, waited a couple minutes then tried it again, this time the spots didn't bead they "wet" immediately, so based on my very "scientific" test I would say probably not water proof. lol

[Jim Burr]

Crud:mad:...I was thinking it would be great for a bowl of stew! Oh well...fine piece of work despite that small defect;)

[charlie knighton]

very nice, so why the cautus juice???

[Michael James]

Nice bowl, beautiful chunk of wood. I say continue your quest, go where no woodturner has gone before! :)
mj

[Jerry Marcantel]

very nice, so why the cautus juice???

James nice bowl, and seems like your vac chamber is working for you. When you vaccum the bowl, is it sitting in the chamber like a bowl normally would be used filled with liquid and drain off after vaccuming? Then you cook it on the cookie sheet? upside down shown in the picture? Is that how you do it?
Now, what is cactus juice and where do you get it? I recently bought some "Cactus Juice", but it is a liquid ferterlizer for all the cacti I started from seed 3 years back..... Jerry (in Tucson)

[Bernie Weishapl]

James that is a nice looking bowl. Great popcorn size for sure. Cactus Juice??? Could you explain more?

[Michelle Rich]

it turned out beautifully..super bowl

[James Combs]

JD, that sure is some nice wood. Sounds like one needs to omit finish on these castings/infusions, and just go with a polishing.

John I am going try that very thing on the next one.



I really like the wood. The color is nice. I prefer a heavier bowl - actually, I like the bottom a little thicker so the bowl has some balast.

Thanks Rich, that's was exactly my thinking. However, the resin also added to the weight.



Very nice bowl. Just big enough for popcorn!!!


Crud:mad:...I was thinking it would be great for a bowl of stew! Oh well...fine piece of work despite that small defect;)

Scott/Jim, thanks for the comments, it would work great for the popcorn but it needs some more work before stew.;)



Nice bowl, beautiful chunk of wood. I say continue your quest, go where no woodturner has gone before! :)
mj

Thanks MJ, going, going, going..... :)



James nice bowl, and seems like your vac chamber is working for you. When you vaccum the bowl, is it sitting in the chamber like a bowl normally would be used filled with liquid and drain off after vaccuming? Then you cook it on the cookie sheet? upside down shown in the picture? Is that how you do it?
Now, what is cactus juice and where do you get it? I recently bought some "Cactus Juice", but it is a liquid ferterlizer for all the cacti I started from seed 3 years back..... Jerry (in Tucson)


very nice, so why the cautus juice???


James that is a nice looking bowl. Great popcorn size for sure. Cactus Juice??? Could you explain more?

Jerry/Charlie/Bernie, Cactus Juice is a trade name for a heat activated stabilizing resin. You can find and read about it here, http://www.turntex.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=121.

Jerry, yes it sits in the chamber upright but inside of a larger plastic bowl. The project bowl has weights in it to keep it from floating plus it is full of resin plus the container bowl is also full of resin there by completely surrounding the project bowl.

Charlie/Bernie, the spalted maple is extremely punky (soft) and does not lend itself to turning even with sharp tools. The resin treatment stiffens up all the fibers and it turns very nicely. The downside is that it is very very dusty.

If you haven't read it yet check out my post on creating my vacuum chamber.



it turned out beautifully..super bowl

Thanks Michelle.

[Doug W Swanson]

JD, I really like this bowl. While I do appreciate really thin and artsy stuff, to me there is nothing better that a nice usable bowl. The form is good and the spalting looks nice.

Nice job!

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Wow, James, it looks great! I would love to have your permission to include a couple of your photos in my customer gallery if you would be so inclined.

One thing you can do if you want to improve on the "waterproofness" is stabilize it twice. Go ahead and stabilize and cure the first time, then run it though again. It will pick up more resin and be more sealed. I recently did some whale bone pen blanks for a buddy and it was porous as heck. It took 4 stabilizing cycles to get it mostly solid!

[Michael Kellough]

Great info James!

I notice you had a substantial tenon on the bowl when it got the CJ treatment. When you turned away the tenon had the CJ made it into the bottom of the bowl where the tenon had been?

[Ray Bell]

Very nice James. After clicking on the Cactus Juice link, a question, the vendor also supplies vacuum chambers, but not say vacuum is necessary for the Juice to work. I am guessing that the vacuum would help with penetration, but do you, or anybody else know how effective Cactus Juice is when just brushing it on punky wood ala Minwax woodhardner?

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Very nice James. After clicking on the Cactus Juice link, a question, the vendor also supplies vacuum chambers, but not say vacuum is necessary for the Juice to work. I am guessing that the vacuum would help with penetration, but do you, or anybody else know how effective Cactus Juice is when just brushing it on punky wood ala Minwax woodhardner?

Ray, I am the vendor so I can certainly answer this! Just brushing it is on not going to be nearly as effective as vacuum or even soaking, unfortunately. However, if you are happy with the way Minwax Wood Hardener works for you, then you should be happy with the results. MWH is 72% acetone and 78% volitle. This means that 78% of whatever you get into the wood is going to evaporate when it dries leaving just 22% solids behind. Whereas the material discussed here cures at 100% since there is nothing to evaporate. I would rather see you soak it, though, and not because it means you will use more but because you will get better results! I have done some testing with spalted pecan where I did some with just soaking, some with just 70 psi of pressure, and some with vacuum. Of course the vacuum ones did way better having a 142% increase in weight while the soaked blanks had an 85% increase in weight and the pressure blanks had a 98% increase in weight on average.

I hope that helps some without sounding like a sales pitch. It is certainly not intended to be!

[Dennis Nagle]

That does help Curtis. If I turned a HF down to 1/4" wall and bottom thickness, then put it in a vacuum pot, filled the HF with 1/2" (for example) Cactus Juice, then pulled a vacuum. After it cured, would it have soaked through to the outside of the HF, thereby affecting the ability to take a finish????

Can CJ cure without heat?

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

That does help Curtis. If I turned a HF down to 1/4" wall and bottom thickness, then put it in a vacuum pot, filled the HF with 1/2" (for example) Cactus Juice, then pulled a vacuum. After it cured, would it have soaked through to the outside of the HF, thereby affecting the ability to take a finish????

Can CJ cure without heat?

Dennis,

No, it can NOT cure without heat at all. Remember, in order for most of the common resins to cure without heat, it either needs to be a 2 part system that you mix which starts the chemical reaction or it needs to be primariliy solvent based in which the solvent evaporates, leaving behind the solids.

In order for vacuum to be effective in impregnating the wood, you would have to completely submerge the wood. What happens is when you pull a vacuum, you are reducing the pressure inside a vacuum chamber. Since our air is compressed by our atmospheric pressure, when you remove the pressure, the air de-compresses and expands. When it expands, it flows out of the wood and if the wood is submerged, when you release the vacuum, the negative pressure differential inside the wood pulls the resin back in. If the piece is not submerged, it will simply pull air back in. If you don't have a large enough vessel or don't want to have to have so much resin, then you could apply it with a brush as long as you keep applying it until it won't take any more. Then cure it.

If you are just trying to seal the inside of the HF, then I would suggest using an epoxy or urethane resin and keep it rotating to keep the resin spread out. I have had good luck with this on HF's in the past. The Juice will soak through to the outside and could possibly affect any penetrating finish's ability to penetrate. However, it won't affect any kind of film finish such as lacquer or poly.

I hope that helps some. If not, don't hesitate to post again or even better yet, call me and we can further discuss it! I don't want to appear that i am trying to advertise in this thread as I firmly believe that advertising belongs only in certain parts of a forum!

[Ray Bell]

Thank you Curtis, doesn't sound like a sales pitch at all. You are just stating the facts.
One more question. If you use this as a submergence is it reusable? Does it stain like DNA after using on walnut?

[Ray Bell]

Curtis, the reason I ask if this is reusable is that I never turn pens, or small items. I always turn bowls usually from 5" to 10" dia. So it may not be economically feasible to use that much CJ each time to soak a bowl.

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Thank you Curtis, doesn't sound like a sales pitch at all. You are just stating the facts.
One more question. If you use this as a submergence is it reusable? Does it stain like DNA after using on walnut?

Yes sir, it is reusable pretty much indefinitely. It will darken with subsequent uses due to wood contamination but nothing like DNA will. I have found that even if it does darken some, it does not affect the color of light woods until it gets really really dark. In most cases, by then, you would have had to add more to the container you are working in since some of it will be used up and this will dilute any darkness.

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Another thing I would like to try if I ever get the time is to turn a bowl and put it in a container. Then fill the bowl up with resin and allow it to leak through the wood. I believe, but have not tried this, that it would get a pretty good concentration of the resin into the wood without the need for submerging it. Be advised, though, that vacuum is still going to do the best job but may not be feasible for the larger pieces. One of these days, if i ever get caught up and get some fun time of my own, I plan to try this! I might be convinced to give a discount to someone who would like to try this for me and provide good feedback!

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

And by the way, when I say good feedback, I mean accurate feedback be it successful or not!

[James Combs]

WOW this is like resurrection of the dead.:rolleyes:


Great info James!

I notice you had a substantial tenon on the bowl when it got the CJ treatment. When you turned away the tenon had the CJ made it into the bottom of the bowl where the tenon had been?
Michael I have used CJ many times and have yet to turn a piece that the CJ did not penetrate to at least the boundary of my final cut. Most of my pieces I turn to at least a 1/4" wall and some thinner and in my experience I have not hit raw wood. Therefore in my estimation it goes all the way through the wood. If I had a complaint about CJ it would be that the treated wood turns with an excessive amount of dust but that is something I can work around.


Very nice James. After clicking on the Cactus Juice link, a question, the vendor also supplies vacuum chambers, but not say vacuum is necessary for the Juice to work. I am guessing that the vacuum would help with penetration, but do you, or anybody else know how effective Cactus Juice is when just brushing it on punky wood ala Minwax woodhardner?
Thanks Ray I see that Curtis followed up on this, I hope his comments took care of all of your questions.


Ray, I am the vendor so I can certainly answer this! Just brushing it is on not going to be nearly as effective as vacuum or even soaking, unfortunately. However, if you are happy with the way Minwax Wood Hardener works for you, then you should be happy with the results. MWH is 72% acetone and 78% volitle. This means that 78% of whatever you get into the wood is going to evaporate when it dries leaving just 22% solids behind. Whereas the material discussed here cures at 100% since there is nothing to evaporate. I would rather see you soak it, though, and not because it means you will use more but because you will get better results! I have done some testing with spalted pecan where I did some with just soaking, some with just 70 psi of pressure, and some with vacuum. Of course the vacuum ones did way better having a 142% increase in weight while the soaked blanks had an 85% increase in weight and the pressure blanks had a 98% increase in weight on average.
I hope that helps some without sounding like a sales pitch. It is certainly not intended to be!
Curtis, thanks for dropping in here. Your comments and insights are always welcomed.


That does help Curtis. If I turned a HF down to 1/4" wall and bottom thickness, then put it in a vacuum pot, filled the HF with 1/2" (for example) Cactus Juice, then pulled a vacuum. After it cured, would it have soaked through to the outside of the HF, thereby affecting the ability to take a finish????
Can CJ cure without heat?
Dennis, thanks for commenting. I will go along with Curtis, I have tried something similar because I was short on CJ, only the submerged parts of the wood took any amount of CJ.


Thank you Curtis, doesn't sound like a sales pitch at all. You are just stating the facts.
One more question. If you use this as a submergence is it reusable? Does it stain like DNA after using on walnut?


Dennis,No, it can NOT cure without heat at all. Remember, in order for most of the common resins to cure without heat, it either needs to be a 2 part system that you mix which starts the chemical reaction or it needs to be primariliy solvent based in which the solvent evaporates, leaving behind the solids.In order for vacuum to be effective in impregnating the wood, you would have to completely submerge the wood. What happens is when you pull a vacuum, you are reducing the pressure inside a vacuum chamber. Since our air is compressed by our atmospheric pressure, when you remove the pressure, the air de-compresses and expands. When it expands, it flows out of the wood and if the wood is submerged, when you release the vacuum, the negative pressure differential inside the wood pulls the resin back in. If the piece is not submerged, it will simply pull air back in. If you don't have a large enough vessel or don't want to have to have so much resin, then you could apply it with a brush as long as you keep applying it until it won't take any more. Then cure it. If you are just trying to seal the inside of the HF, then I would suggest using an epoxy or urethane resin and keep it rotating to keep the resin spread out. I have had good luck with this on HF's in the past. The Juice will soak through to the outside and could possibly affect any penetrating finish's ability to penetrate. However, it won't affect any kind of film finish such as lacquer or poly. I hope that helps some. If not, don't hesitate to post again or even better yet, call me and we can further discuss it! I don't want to appear that i am trying to advertise in this thread as I firmly believe that advertising belongs only in certain parts of a forum!
Continued Thanks Curtis.


Curtis, the reason I ask if this is reusable is that I never turn pens, or small items. I always turn bowls usually from 5" to 10" dia. So it may not be economically feasible to use that much CJ each time to soak a bowl.
Ray thanks for your continued comments. BTW one of the ways I get around having to have "gallons" of CJ for bowls is by having several nested plastic mixing bowls handy. (Purchased myself not from SWMBO:D) I will rough out the bowl that needs processing, place it into a plastic bowl that is slightly larger especially taller then the rough-out. I will then choose another plastic bowl that just fits inside the rough-out and place it into the rough-out with it full of metal weight(for odd shapes I will use only the metal weights inside the rough-out. I will then pour CJ into the larger plastic bowl until it floods over the rough-out and fills it up but not over the inside plastic bowl. I will size both plastic bowls so that there is at least a 1/2" of CJ over the top edge of the rough-out. This hole assemble now goes into my vacuum chamber. I am limited to about 9" bowls do to the size of my chamber but it would work with large bowls with larger chambers. Oh and BTW, after vacuum processing I will drain any unused CJ back into a container for reuse, as a matter of fact I have re-vacuumed the rough-out again while it was in the empty large plastic bowl to pull out any excess CJ especially for wood that I am not trying to gap fill. I figure as long as the wood cell walls are wet anything in the cell voids is a waste of CJ and it has worked fine and saved some CJ. Even when I do that there is still a substantial amount that flows out during the cooking process so make sure you don't cook it with your tenon or other mounting feature down in the oven. The cook out will change it's shape and make it difficult to remount DAMHIKT:o.


Yes sir, it is reusable pretty much indefinitely. It will darken with subsequent uses due to wood contamination but nothing like DNA will. I have found that even if it does darken some, it does not affect the color of light woods until it gets really really dark. In most cases, by then, you would have had to add more to the container you are working in since some of it will be used up and this will dilute any darkness.

And by the way, when I say good feedback, I mean accurate feedback be it successful or not!
Thanks again Curtis.1168

[Ray Bell]

James, sorry to have sort of hi-jacked your original thread. This has been very informative, and again, a very nice bowl!

[Donny Lawson]

I deal with ALOT of spalted wood all the time and I have thought of trying this stabilizing process. I'm trying to figure out if I made pen blanks, about what would be the cost per blank after stabilizing? Or would it be better to let someone that is already set up to do it for me?

[Greg Bolton22]

Has anyone tried using a vacuum bag set-up for this? The modern boat builders have started using vacuum bag technology to reduce the amount of resin needed and cut down on the released volatiles. I would be very interested in any leads on vacuum bags for this purpose. I think the 25'x10' bags for boat hulls may be a little too big for a 12" bowl!

Thanks,

Greg