Wood Stiffener

[Crooked Stic]

The stuff I use is from Turn Tex (cactus Juice ) Acrylic resin. You get a little bottle of activator with every gallon. Put it in there and shake the pee out of it till its mixed. You can leave it plain or add die. They say 4 OZ. per gallon for max color. For may chambers and being a tight a$$ I got sch. 40 PVC and glue caps on one end. You need a weight to keep the wood from floating. Mine is a diesel piston pin maybe 3 lbs. So it is maybe 5 in. long. So you have to allow for all of this when getting your chamber the right length. My pieces are 20 in. or less in 4 in PVC so they are about 3.5 in. wide and 8/4. With a 19 in. piece about 1/2 gallon will cover it and you may have to add more as it soaks to keep the wood covered. Can get about three pieces out of a gallon depending on the wood type. I have a empty chamber between the main chamber to catch any overflow. If it gets in your pump the heat will lock it up. (dont ask ) Got my pump off the big site. fairly cheap.
I find maple to be most acceptable to the juice and takes on enough to not float.Walnut has to soak about two weeks. This stuff has to be cured with about 200 degrees for about 4 hours on the riser block size. For that I made a plywwood box with two 200 watt blubs and a snap disc from Grainger. The lids on the chambers are 1/2 lexan. Anything thinner will crack after awhile. There are some pretty good utube on this stuff to

[Roy from Pa]

 

[Flem]

Nice set-up Does your pump run continuously? I like your vertical tanks, makes more sense than a shallow pot. So three of your chunks soak up a gallon of juice?

[Crooked Stic]

Flem after three pieces you have juice left maybe 1/3 of a gallon but not enough to cover a long piece. If you had a 2 inch tube maybe could get some 1 1/2 pieces done in it. Most times I will put thinner pieces on the sides of the block that can be used for overlays etc.also when curing the wood needs to be wrapped in HD foil to cut down on leakage.

[Flem]

Sorry for all the questions, but this is interesting. How long do you vac before the soak?

[Crooked Stic]

The reason for the clear lid is so you can see the bubbles as the air comes out of the wood and to watch on startup and bring full vacuum in slow to prevent overflow. Vacuum until most of the bubbles are gone and varies depending on wood species. So no really set time just little or no bubbles coming up.

[Flem]

I wonder if you put your pieces in a pressure pot after vac-ing all the air out, if it would speed up the soak and drive the juice deeper into the wood?

[Crooked Stic]

Curtis (Owner of TurnTex) says the only thing that pressure will do is cut the soak time down. And you would need some type of vessel to take the pressure. Also critical your wood is at its lowest MC possible. I have put maple in the heat box for about a day and thin let it cool in a plastic bag the pull vacuum.
Some woods like walnut needs very low heat to get the moisture out. Had a piece of Claro split wide open with too much heat..

[Flem]

Sch 80 PVC?  What do you use for a seal on the PVC.

[Crooked Stic]

To seal the PVC for vacuum just a rubber gasket and it pulls tight.
They make a PVC that takes pressure but have no idea how much. I know Gary Schuler had a steel chamber that he add 100 psi after the vacuum.
If you are in no hurry just let it soak long. Maple usally will not float after about 5 days but you got to check the juice level to keep it covered.

Ah Bue what else you need stiffened

[williwaw]

Does catus juice actually stiffen wood? I looked around the website and found no actual claims for stiffening. Stabilizing yes. It would be interesting to put a lam test sample in the pot and do some before and after testing like is being proposed in flems thread.

[canopyboy]

Trying to catch up, and I just had to click on a topic called "Wood Stiffener" first. Funny, it wasn't what I was thinking...

 

[Crooked Stic]

Williwaw it is an inside joke. I think maybe Roy got it going awhile back. Although it does make some woods a bit brittle.

[Roy from Pa]

Sure stickypops blame ole Roy.

 

[Crooked Stic]