# Stabilzation Resin



## jazz (May 15, 2012)

Hi all,

My vacuum pump is on the way and soon I hope to finish my wood stabilization setup.

In another thread I learned that Cactus Juice is used as resin but the price and the shipment I found on ebay are far more than I realy need to pay, I guess..

Dowes anyone have experience with alternative resins?

What about mixture of 50% linseed oil (boiled or not?) and 50% of turpentine? Does this combination work and if it does do I have to bake the piece in the oven or just let it dry for couple of days? Because if this is ok, than these materials are available here and not expensive.

Any other alternatives?

Thanks,

jazz


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## leon13 (Oct 4, 2012)

Hi would like to know if that works 
linseed/turpentine combo 
Cheerio


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## parnell (May 20, 2012)

The linseed oil would penetrate the wood deeper with a vacuum, but it won't stabilize anything. Stabilizing resins are meant to harden to keep weak or rotting wood together. With Cactus juice you have to bake it after for it to harden.


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## eggy22 (Feb 3, 2013)

I'm very interested in this thread .


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## TSM (Oct 8, 2013)

I, too, would like to know more. I've hears of polyurethane based stabilizers. What about a BLO/poly mix?


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## Winnie (Nov 10, 2010)

I've been thinking of doing this to stabilize some bark on a slingshot. I was thinking, since the point is to get the stabilizer as deep as possible into the wood, wouldn't a catalyzed resin of some sort be best? I was thinking of an epoxy sealer.

winnie


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## Bajaja (May 13, 2011)

Okay, this question is for me :-D I made only five stabilized forks yet and still learn how to do it better. At first, stabilizing of healthy wood is waste of money, so I use it only for crappy dead wood ot to stabilize bark.

You can use any resin, urethane or epoxy based, pmma, anything usable for bonding or casting, but casting resins are better. It must be something that cured using heat or hardeners.
About baking cactus juice, if you set your owen for 200F, wood will not heat up to this temperature cometly, it will have about 180F inside of the wood and it takes a long time. So hardening proces will not be complete inside of the fork. I measured it in my work (I work in university lab). Resin is not as hard as can be and still smells. 
Much much much better was when I cooked it in the pot with water. You can easily measure right temperature with some cheap preserving or rostbeaf/meat thermometers. But you must wrap the foil tightly.

If you pump linseed oil into the wood, you will not make stabilized wood. It will be dry for very long time, so baking low and slow helps to drying or "hardening". It will not be stabilized, but it will be very well oiled for very long time. And if you wave some healthy naturals, try it!

Good luck

RK


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## Arnisador78 (Apr 10, 2013)

Reznik Krkovicka said:


> Okay, this question is for me :-D I made only five stabilized forks yet and still learn how to do it better. At first, stabilizing of healthy wood is waste of money, so I use it only for crappy dead wood ot to stabilize bark.
> 
> You can use any resin, urethane or epoxy based, pmma, anything usable for bonding or casting, but casting resins are better. It must be something that cured using heat or hardeners.
> About baking cactus juice, if you set your owen for 200F, wood will not heat up to this temperature cometly, it will have about 180F inside of the wood and it takes a long time. So hardening proces will not be complete inside of the fork. I measured it in my work (I work in university lab). Resin is not as hard as can be and still smells.
> ...


That's great info.


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## Bajaja (May 13, 2011)

And you if you want to protect or prevent (my laguage is poor) wood from fungi, you can try sodium silicate, also known as waterglass. You can harden it in microwave I think. But it is wery densy liquid and will soak into the wood slowly.

Ha, maybe it´s time to research and use our resistograph. But I am already in my pyjamas.


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## The Gopher (Aug 25, 2010)

Hey Jazz, what are you using for a chamber? I have also been thinking of this. I have a pump and all the other bits and pieces, but no chamber. I'd like it to be a cube.


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## Bajaja (May 13, 2011)

The Gopher said:


> Hey Jazz, what are you using for a chamber? I have also been thinking of this. I have a pump and all the other bits and pieces, but no chamber. I'd like it to be a cube.


I am not Jazz but I use big 1,5 L glass jar (from pickles). And I use big funnel insert on it, put hose in it and it sucks together and hold well. No bits and pieces. Cheap and easy. I will take a picture tomorrow, hope somebody find it useful.


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## jazz (May 15, 2012)

Hi The Gopher,

I wait for my pump to come and then I intend to go back to the shop where they work with glas/windows/glass table tops etc. and where they told me that they can make a small containter for me in the same procedure as when making fish tanks. I intend to make the lid a bit wider than the outer measurements of the tank and I intend to glue some microcelular rubber on top of the walls of the tank since I found something similar on Internet and the guy says it works.

Actualy, I would readily try the large jar as Reznik Krkovicka does in the comment above but believe it or not I can not find a large jar with thick walls as I guess that is necessary. If I do I will simply have to chambers then.

The first method, fish tank has one advantage and it is that I can make it as large/small as I want (excluding power of the pressure in this moment). What I intend to do in order to define the horizontal 2 dimensions (length and width) is to take all my frames and intended frames (raw forks) and measure them. These might be not realy the biggest ones but those below, not sure yet..

It works, I gues, in the third (height) dimension as well: I will try to leave space/height for the almost thickest forks I have (similar to the above logic) ad some 2 cm for the level of the resin and then add some 5-7 cm for the bubbles and other to have space to go - or at least I think so in this moment.

Actual measurements I will also calculate (actualy a friend of mine will do this for me) when I get my pump and find out what is the maximum vacuum it can make. Then he will test mathematicaly my desig/designsn. Among other parameters, an important value for this calculation is some parameter called "k" for the glass, I think it is the same k which is used in our slingshot/rubber calculations, and I guess that either people in the shop will know its value for glass or we shall find it on the internet. This should tell how my container might hold against the powers acting upon it.

This is just my thinking right now, soon I will know better.

cheers,

jazz


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## Bajaja (May 13, 2011)

I know you will hate me for my obtruision guys, but you don't need glass jar with extra thick wall because of arching effect of round shaped bottle. Think about it mr. Jazz and give it a try. And if you realy implode some jamjar, let me know. I guess it will break in the bottom.

And from the other hand, my new big trick. I have little of resin so I put marbles into chamber (around the fotk). Level rises up so I can still stabilize some forks. One knife maker told me to try it.


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## flicks (Feb 16, 2013)

Lately, I've played around with stabilizing too. I found some spalted beech, which I wanted to use for a knife handle. It had some very soft parts, so I decided to try a vacuum filling.

The first attemt was a stabilization it with 2K resin. The wood was completely soaked and rock hard. But to be honest - I did not like it. The wood is somehow dead and the feel kinda like plastic.

Then I tried to fill it with boiled linseed oil and it came out great. I did a test on some scrap woo, cuz I was a bit concerned that it would not dry inside, but it did! BLO does polymerize and will dry completely! But use BOILED linseed oil. It dries 3 times faster than pure linseed oil.

Is is not as hard as epoxied, but absolutely hard enough to stabilize the soft parts in the wood. You can even sand it afterwards and polish it up. Plus it is easily available. And the wood still feels like wood!

Don't dilute it with turpentine. It is not necessary and the turpentine will "boil up" in the vacuum. If you apply enough vacuum, the wood will be soaked completely.

Another plus - If you really want to "fire up" the color, BLO is your #1 choice. The left one the photo is the epoxy stabilized, in the middle is filled with BLO and on the right is a sheet of the untreated wood. In fact the difference is much more obvious than on the photo.










This is my vacuum setup. A vac.pump used for the service of air conditions. A pressure cooker pot and a 15 mm polycarbonate lid. I would not recomment to use a glass. Sorry Reznik, no offense, but I've cracked a thick-walled glass with vacuum. In fact it imploded. No fun and a mess in the shop. It may work with low vacuum tho.
The gasket is made of a 2 mm anti slippery rubber mat. It works great! I apply a vacuum of remaining 0.05bar and it is 100 % sealed









I use cheap aluminium trays. I mold them around the wood and fill them with BLO. Then I just put them into the pressure cooker pot. A very clean way IMO.


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## The Gopher (Aug 25, 2010)

Thanks for the tips Flicks! did the BLO actually get hard? and how long did it take? did you heat it? thanks, Dan.


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## Bajaja (May 13, 2011)

Nice spalted handle mr. flicks. But... Don't scare me, I use similar vacuum pump and my glass jar still lives.. For now. I better wear protect goggles for next time. You are right!
Your vacuum pot and poly lid looks realy durable and profesional. I envy you!


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## flicks (Feb 16, 2013)

The BLO dried completely. I cut the test piece in half after 1 week stored at room temperature. The size was about 2x2x4 cm.


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## leon13 (Oct 4, 2012)

Thanks Flicks for al the Info !!! And the wood knife parts really looks great, I like your set up,so good to hear it works with BLO
Cheers


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## Poiema (Jul 21, 2014)

flicks said:


> Lately, I've played around with stabilizing too. I found some spalted beech, which I wanted to use for a knife handle. It had some very soft parts, so I decided to try a vacuum filling.
> 
> The first attemt was a stabilization it with 2K resin. The wood was completely soaked and rock hard. But to be honest - I did not like it. The wood is somehow dead and the feel kinda like plastic.
> 
> ...





flicks said:


> The BLO dried completely. I cut the test piece in half after 1 week stored at room temperature. The size was about 2x2x4 cm.


@Flicks, that looks to be a really professional and safe setup. Brilliant idea using a 2mm rubber mat as a gasket to seal the vacuum. The alum trays as well for smaller individual projects. I'm wondering how long you need to leave the oil under pressure to ensure complete saturation. And are you able to re-use any leftover, or is all of it pretty much absorbed by the wood. It sounds like you need at least 1 week for drying and polymerization.


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## leon13 (Oct 4, 2012)

any chance of a video like a tutorial for BLO vac. ? from start to end ?

cheerio


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## Luke Pighetti (Oct 29, 2014)

It's not generally recommended to create your own pressure vessels, but you can impregnate the surface only by using pressure instead of vacuum. This can help get around the issue of a soggy core when vacuum impregnated and not given enough time to heat to cure in an oven (if using heat activated chemicals like Cactus Juice).

I've always wanted to call West Systems and ask them this question. There's no reason you couldn't use a low viscocity epoxy. I suspect that's uncommon though because it's a pain to clean up and you can't reuse it. You can just keep topping off Cactus Juice.

Good luck!


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