Wooden sink

[David Reed]

I am new to the list and have an interesting question for, the hopefully, more experienced turners. I have turned several bowls from a huge trunk of birdseye maple burl and have my sights set on either a turned or freeform sink of the same material. Any recomendations to help to stabilize the wood and make it truely water proof. I have thought that using a vacuum to impregnate it with epoxy, but have not come up with a reasonable technique for this. Any assistance will be appreciated.
Here are a few pics of my most recent bowl project. The sink would have fewer holes in it. The bowl is 18" diameter and about six inches high, hand buffed with Dura Seal clear oil finish.
David Reed
http://IMG_3155_1_1

[William Bachtel]

I have a friend who does epoxy boats, it may help to know your location. He also makes wooden paddles and loves wood. His site is: www.jimisnyder.com

[Steve Schlumpf]

David - Welcome to the Creek!

Great looking bowl! No idea how to absolutely water-proof wood - so will keep my eye on this thread! Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

[Reed Gray]

There is a company in Wilsonville, OR that is doing this with Norfolk Island Pine. They 'stabilize' the wood (the main part of their business) by putting it in a vacuum chamber and infusing it with a polymer. They aslo use a pressure chamber after that. Not something the average person can do. I don't have their name, I just know about them.
robo hippy

[Mike Vickery]

Nice piece. I talked to one guy that was making water proof vases by spraying with converstion varnish. From what I unsterstand this is not something that the average Joe can get or would want to use. Think Hazmat suit and painting contractors license.

[Paul Engle]

Nice piece, I was gonna say marine epoxy / gel coat would be a good place to start as you need something very durable to say the least, or some sort of stablization vacume process , google it out as there are companys that stablize pen blanks that maybe able to help you . again , nice work on the bowl.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Welcome to SMC David. That is one mighty fine looking bowl. Nice job. I would use some kind of epoxy to completely waterproof it.

[Brodie Brickey]

David,

Welcome. I've used 3M's Mirror Coat on some pieces. Its a two part epoxy and dries clear with a high gloss which you can dull down as needed. I think your biggest problem will be:

--Avoiding runs in the piece as you apply and dry the epoxy.

Depending on how pressed you are the complete this, I'd certainly do the rough and dry then finish turn methodology (I'm old fashioned and haven't used some of the other drying methods). I'd then probably put a couple coats of oil on it and let that dry up real good, before applying the epoxy.

A number of people build wooden kayaks and use different epoxies to meet their needs. If you google it, you should come across a number of side by side reviews of epoxy choices.

[David Reed]

Thanks for all the input. The epoxie infusion is what I was thinking of. If anyone knows more specifically if and where I might have something like this done, I would appreciate any leads.
Applying a coating of any of a variety of polymers would certainly make it water resistant but moisture has a way of getting through even the most "water proof" of epoxies (don't ask me, a sailboat owner, how I know this). When that happens, even due to seasonal humidity variations, we all know the wood changes size and shape. This can lead to failure of the coating. I would like to stabilize the wood first. Has anyone used PEG and and then coated with epoxie?
Thanks again. This site certainly seems to have a wealth of woodworking knowlege on tap.
Any one on the list in Western Washington?
David

[Andrew Harkin]

One of the most common hobbyist stabilization techniques involves mason jars full of various liquid plastics (acetone/plexi is pretty popular, although I believe others have had decent luck with various others). The piece of wood is placed in the jar, completely submerged, and then a fairly hefty vacuum is pulled (or sometimes pressures is used instead) in the jar, which pulls the air out of the wood, drawing the liquid into the wood. The main problem I've had with this is that the wood has to be fairly porous for it to be able to draw the plastic in, or else you have to dilute the plexi with so much acetone that you're pulling in more acetone than plexi and you don't end up as solid as you'd like.

I believe the commercial stabilizers use a fairly similar system, although I'm sure they work at much higher pressures and vacuums as well as having the ability to use heat and plastics that the ordinary joe would have a difficult time with.

I found something on a knifemaking site a few days ago (I'm sorry, I can't remember offhand who's site it was) about a guy who was stabilizing fairly large pieces of wood to saw into knife scales. He would take his block of wood and drill a 1/4" or so hole an inch or two into it, and then would screw in some sort of air hose fitting. He would then submerge the piece of wood in the liquid resin (I think he was using some sort of polyester resin, but it wasn't too fancy as he said he got it at a walmart). With his setup, he didn't have to worry about sealing the container, so he was just pouring the resin into a plastic bag with the wood inside. He would then hook up a plastic hose to the air fitting screwed into the wood and draw a similar amount of vacuum to what I use in my mason jar setup (22.5 inches). Since the vacuum was drawing directly through the wood, instead of trying to work with the whole jar, so it seemed to really work well. He would just watch for the liquid to start coming up the hose, and then quickly shut off his vacuum. For a piece the size you're looking at, I could see having to have several holes to draw vacuum through, but it might be something that would work.

He was using it on some woods that I wouldn't even bother trying in my setup. The poly resin he was using may have also helped, it looked pretty thin. In any case, he ended up with wood that was hard enough to use for knife handles, and with the quality of his work, I'm guessing he wouldn't have used that wood if he didn't feel it would hold up well.

I have not had a chance to try this yet, I need to stop and get some different fittings, and then I have some blocks of very soft redwood burl that are too large for my jars that I'm going to test it on.