Do you weight the bowl when

[Jim Stoppleworth]

soaking with DNA?

Jim

[Bernie Weishapl]

Yes, I have a couple of large steel nuts that I put in the bottom of small bowls and boxes. On large bowls I some lead I got from the plumbing supply house. It comes in 5 lb. bars and I cut it into thirds.

[Ernie Nyvall]

No, because the dna will saturate the bowl even if part of it is not in the alcohol.

Ernie

[Lee DeRaud]

Well, that pretty much covers all the options...:p

[Jim Stoppleworth]

Well, that pretty much covers all the options...:p

Lee, they didn't cover maybe!:D

Jim

[Michael Stafford]

Not to be argumentative, but when I learned the process I was taught that the bowls had to be submerged in the alcohol. I use a round of scrap Corian with a handle affixed to sink my bowls to the bottom.

Lead I would guess is pretty inert but the steel nuts might concern me as they could react with the tannin in the wood to create some nasty black stains. Just speculation on my part, no actual knowledge that it has happened.

[Jim Stoppleworth]

I weiged them down with a piece of scrapwood figuring it can't hurt them to be completely submerged.

Thanks for you input everyone.

Jim

[Ernie Nyvall]

Not to be argumentative, but when I learned the process I was taught that the bowls had to be submerged in the alcohol.

Mike is right on how the instructions read.

I had an instance where I roughed out too many bowls to get them all in the dna. Since the trash can that I have the dna in has a lid, and is very dark inside, I put all the bowls in it figuring to submerge the two that didn't make it the next day. The two bowls were just touching the dna on about a quarter of the lip. Well, the next day both of those bowls were soaking wet with the dna. I took the bottom bowls out and put the two on top back in the dna and they sunk. So anyway, the next bowl I put in there, I didn't weigh down and the next morning, it was completely submerged. With this above, I don't worry about holding them down any more. I haven't had any problems so far.

Sorry, I should have been moe descriptive on my first response because what Mike wrote is true about the instructions.

Ernie

[Chris Barton]

soaking with DNA?

Jim

You could but, you would need some really good scales. The specific gravity of DNA versus water is rather narrow. So, you would need a scale that weighed accurately to less than a gram. On the other hand, if you leave it there for a couple of days you can be fairly certain the the DNA has sucked the water out of the wood. This is not a science but, more an art...

[Bernie Weishapl]

Big Mike I should have said stainless steel nuts. So far they haven't left any black marks or discolored either themselves or the wood. Mostly I use the lead unless I got to many.

[Jim Dunn]

Well what about John Harts method of filling em with chips and soaking the chips with DNA? I just rough turned a maple bowl and soaked the bottom, filled the bowl with sawdust and filled to the brim with alky.

I'm not defending either method, but it seems to me the water is heavier than the alky and would drain out the bottom of the bowl.