What does "stable" mean?

[George Conklin]

In turners lingo, not the thing you put horses in:D .

I've seen posts where people call certain woods "very stable". I'm guessing that they don't move much. Does that mean that you can turn wet to final size w/o worry of distortion?
Thanks,
George

[Bernie Weishapl]

I would be interested in the same thing. Which woods are the best to turn without to much movement or cracking, etc.

[Brad Schmid]

In turners lingo, not the thing you put horses in:D .

I've seen posts where people call certain woods "very stable". I'm guessing that they don't move much. Does that mean that you can turn wet to final size w/o worry of distortion?
Thanks,
George

George,
"stable" is a very relative term when discussing any wood. Unless it is in an environment where humidty will never change, it will move at least a little bit.

But, some wood species are much better than others due to their lower dimensional change coefficient. Mesquite for example, by comparison to other species has a very low dimensional change coefficient and is thus relatively very stable.

You can find dimensional change coefficients for most species quite easily by searching the web. search for things like "mesquite physical properties" or "wood stability" or "wood movement", etc. You should be able to find something pretty quick. Usually hardwood flooring sites have them posted.

here's an example of what can be found. No affiliation, and if it violated TOS, moderator please delete.
http://www.thesolar.biz/mesquite_properties.htm

Cheers

[Mike Ramsey]

George, I think when turners talk about stable or in most cases
"Stabilized" wood it usually means taking a punky piece and using
a combonation of stuff to impregnate it so we can turn it. I think
John Hart will have something to say about stabilizing as he is
having pretty good luck with his method which I will try to copy
shortly ;) ..

[Ernie Nyvall]

You're asking turners whatt stable is???:eek: You're in big trouble.:D

What Brad and Mike said.

Ernie

[John Hart]

I would think that "stable" is a pretty broad term as Brad is saying, just meaning that the wood doesn't move. Turners in general will try to stabilize all kinds of junk that isn't necessarily going to move....maybe it's going to fall apart or explode during turning. You can buy stabilized pen blanks that aren't even wood anymore really. They have been put in pressurized or vacuum tanks filled with polymers and impregnated to the point that they are mostly resin. This makes it so a burly piece that would normally have catches and likely explode, will now turn to a beautiful piece...and finish wonderfully. They also add dyes to this as well.
What Mike is referencing is not my idea. I got the idea from reading Bill Steveners discovery of an article he read about an Epoxy and DNA mixture. Essentially, you are mixing DNA with Epoxy so it is very thin and will soak into punky, dry, or spalted wood rapidly and then cure as epoxy...basically impregnating and strengthening the wood.
I've only tried this once on a piece of spalted Hickory that had spalting in some places and also had advancing cracks. It stabilized the bowl to the point that the cracks stopped advancing and the spalted areas are now rock hard. I'll use it again for sure.

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

John,

Not to blow my own horn but the "article" BIll posted about using the System Three and DNA was actually a post I made somewhere. He mentioned that he read it and it was from a fellow in Central Texas who did not sign his name. Not exactly sure where he read it because everywhere I post I use the signature function of the forum software! I did recognize the line about the consistency of maple syrup though!

Anyway. I have a lot of spalted wood and some of it is really punky. I decided to try to come up with a method of strengthening it at home and tried many different concoctions. These included:

Minwax wood hardener
plexiglass disolved in acetone
epoxy thinned with acetone
expoxy thinned with DNA
lacquer
shellac
poly
thin CA

The thin CA is the quickest and works great for pens and such but is way to expensive for larger turnings. Epoxy with acetone does not harden up properly but with DNA it does as long as you don't thin it too much. Like you mentioned, if properly soaked, it will make the wood as hard or harder then non punky stuff.

Try adding a little transtint dye to the mix to get some really cool coloring! I did a lidded box out of badly spalted hackberry and added some bordeaux transtint to make a magenta color. All of the soft spots really soaked up the epoxy and had coloring completely through. The hard, non punky wood didn't pick up much of the coloring. When I turned it, I ended up with white and magenta with black lines. Really looked cool. Too bad my top did not fit right so I ended up throwing it out.

I have contacted a number of different manufacturers of products that are supposed to fix rotten wood. As soon as I get all the products together and find the time, I am going to do a thorough, controlled test with a bunch of different products, take pictures, and write an article about my findings. I will post it on the 3 or so turning forums that I frequent so everyone can benefit from my findings. Of course SMC will be the first I post to!

[John Hart]

Yup Curtis...I saw your post over on the other thread....I think you've discovered an outstanding solution to an eternal problem. Your testing and results will be well received I'm sure. I'll certainly keep it!!:) Nice job.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

John's going to learn the other definition of stable!:D



Daddy I wanna horsey!

[John Hart]

Well...you know what they say Ken...You can lead a horse to water but you can't turn him on a lathe!

...hmmmm..well...on second thought.....:rolleyes:

[Curt Fuller]

There's a guy on here named 'Andy' that always gives me a good chuckle. I think "stable" could be defined as 180 degrees in the opposite direction as Andy.

[Bill Stevener]

Curtis,

Hope you get back to this thread.
Guess I did not look far enough down on the thread you posted over on the other channel. So many, such as your self use a handle of sorts, right up front. As I noted no signature. SMC requires ones name and I did not think everyone would recognize your handle, so I reflected the author the best way I saw fit at the time. Sorry I missed that.:o
I thought it was a great idea, and still do. I had a chat with the folks at System Three, all they would say was, use there product wood stabilizer.

Thanks for your experimentation, and yes that was you.

Bill.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>:)

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

Bill,

No problem at all. I really didn't need teh recognition, just when I read John's post about an article you read about using Systrem Three thinned with alcohol my curiosity was piqued! I did a search for all post by you and went through them to try to find the link to the article. I really wanted to read it and see what the author had to say. I was really disapointed when I saw that it was something that I wrote instead of something that someone else wrote that I could learn from! I was hoping to read something else affirming what I have been doing!

I am glad that you found it useful and that I was able to contribute a little to the vast knowledge shared here. Everyone has been so helpful in my progression as a turner that it feels good to be able to give a little back.

The System Three Rot Fix is one of the products I will be testing when I do my article so it will be good to see if it does a better job. I don't see how it could but you never know.

[Bill Stevener]

Bill,

No problem at all. I really didn't need teh recognition, just when I read John's post about an article you read about using Systrem Three thinned with alcohol my curiosity was piqued! I did a search for all post by you and went through them to try to find the link to the article. I really wanted to read it and see what the author had to say. I was really disapointed when I saw that it was something that I wrote instead of something that someone else wrote that I could learn from! I was hoping to read something else affirming what I have been doing!

I am glad that you found it useful and that I was able to contribute a little to the vast knowledge shared here. Everyone has been so helpful in my progression as a turner that it feels good to be able to give a little back.


The System Three Rot Fix is one of the products I will be testing when I do my article so it will be good to see if it does a better job. I don't see how it could but you never know.


OK guy, just keep on mixen em "Epoxy Manhattans"


Bill.>>>>>>>>>>>>>:)

[Andy Hoyt]

There's a guy on here named 'Andy' that always gives me a good chuckle. I think "stable" could be defined as 180 degrees in the opposite direction as Andy.

Unstable, huh? So which crayon am I?:D

[John Hart]

Unstable, huh? So which crayon am I?:D

I'd have to guess Fuchsia

[Andy Hoyt]

I'd have to guess Fuchsia

Hmm? Which part of Roy G Biv does that one fall into?:cool:

[John Hart]

Hmm? Which part of Roy G Biv does that one fall into?:cool:

I'd have to guess in the BIV range. Actually, I consider it a very striking color. It is a tropical shrub with showy drooping purplish or reddish or white flowers; Mainly found in South America, New Zealand, Tahiti...etc.

It was discovered during the Battle of Magenta in the late 19th Century. And it is the same as Magenta I believe.

It was a compliment. :)

[Andy Hoyt]

I'd have to guess in the BIV range. Actually, I consider it a very striking color. It is a tropical shrub with showy drooping purplish or reddish or white flowers; Mainly found in South America, New Zealand, Tahiti...etc.

It was discovered during the Battle of Magenta in the late 19th Century. And it is the same as Magenta I believe.

It was a compliment. :)
Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. da spectrum, John.

Magenta? Fuchsia? geez, what's next Mauve? or Taupe?

Find me a color in english!:D

This is Fuchsia?32090 Eww. Let's leave that for your new horse blanket, tack, and stuff.

[John Hart]

.....Eww. Let's leave that for your new horse blanket, tack, and stuff.

Good idea...maybe he'll run away!!:)

Ok...so you don't wan't to be fuchsia...I can live with that. I'm kind of a Grey sorta fellow m'self. But what ever you end up labeled as, I like hangin' out in the box wit cha. ;)

[Curt Fuller]

Hope I didn't start something here. I was only joking. Andy and John, thanks for many good laughs!

[Andy Hoyt]

Curt - you started fun, and good cheer. What's better?

[Glenn Clabo]

Curt - you started fun, and good cheer. What's better?

Fun, good cheer, AND BEER!