Resin casting otherwise worthless wood

That's what I was alluding to with the comments about cleaning out the edges. I've got 2 gnarly pieces of bookmatched redwood with a huge rotten knot that I'm going to try and cast soon. I stabilized it with cactus juice because I was afraid it would be too fragile to make it to K&G.
 
You dont hold the wood down in the mold? Ever had problems with the resin 'floating' it up? Ive had that happen before and now usually do that. Plus side, I just cut a bunch of wormy spalted maple into about 50 blocks.....more to play with
 
kuraki said:
I agree. Commercial stabilization is better. The pieces in this thread were stabilized by K&G.

In my experience and opinion, cactus juice can attain acceptable results, in porous wood that is bone dry, with the proper procedures and of 1/2" thickness or less. But not equal results.
Click to expand...

I get full penetration in soft to medium density woods 1" thick. You have to l t the block soak until it no longer floats. That can be a week in the chamber. I'm going to try a pressure pot to see if I can speed that up. People mistakenly think the vacuum cycle impregnates the wood.
 
CWendling said:
You dont hold the wood down in the mold? Ever had problems with the resin 'floating' it up? Ive had that happen before and now usually do that. Plus side, I just cut a bunch of wormy spalted maple into about 50 blocks.....more to play with
Click to expand...

Not with K&G stabilized stuff I haven't had it float. That buckeye would definitely float if it wasn't stabilized.
 
Willie71 said:
I get full penetration in soft to medium density woods 1" thick. You have to l t the block soak until it no longer floats. That can be a week in the chamber. I'm going to try a pressure pot to see if I can speed that up. People mistakenly think the vacuum cycle impregnates the wood.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I just didn't want to rehash it again.

I have a piece of buckeye burl that's been soaking after vacuum for 4 months now just to see what happens.
 
kuraki said:
Yeah. I just didn't want to rehash it again.

I have a piece of buckeye burl that's been soaking after vacuum for 4 months now just to see what happens.
Click to expand...

Its not K&G good, but done well, cactus juice is a viable option. I would hesitate buying from someone selling cactus juice as stabilized wood, but I know the stuff I do is well done, and I haven't had a failure yet.

I recommend professional stabilization unless you spend minimum $500.00 on getting set up properly (or already have the proper equipment.) You need a good vacuum pump, a proper chamber, and the resin and hardener. A dedicated oven for baking the blocks is a good idea too.
 
Willie71 said:
Its not K&G good, but done well, cactus juice is a viable option. I would hesitate buying from someone selling cactus juice as stabilized wood, but I know the stuff I do is well done, and I haven't had a failure yet.

I recommend professional stabilization unless you spend minimum $500.00 on getting set up properly (or already have the proper equipment.) You need a good vacuum pump, a proper chamber, and the resin and hardener. A dedicated oven for baking the blocks is a good idea too.
Click to expand...

Hehe. I'm forbidden from curing in the house after I missed some seepage that got to the bottom of our oven.
 
Here's the pieces I'm talking about

tSSJg9P.jpg
 
Doing it yourself is not a way to get stabilized wood cheaper. Its a way to get stuff done when you are in areas where shipping to the pros is not practical, or if you have a supply of great spalting or figured wood in your firewood pile that you want to experiment with. If you have to buy the wood on top of stabilizing yourself, you won't be saving much if anything.

Yup, I luckily thought twice about baking in my kitchen oven. I have a dedicated toaster oven that I tested for temp stability and accuracy.

I sent a block of poplar to Stacy to evaluate. I look forward to his comments.
 
kuraki said:
Fish, are you using vacuum throughout the cure process? ETA: I guess I'm not opposed to trying. I'm basing my aversion to it from reading and from advice from TurnTex.
Click to expand...

Yes Kuraki, I am. I found a poster on YouTube that advocated it and I tried it on a couple of really chopped up pieces which were over 50% resin and it worked beautifully and left no hint of a bubble--honestly I never had any signs of a bubble left behind when using my pressure pot, but the guy I saw on you tube made a lot of sense when he said 'they're squeezed down for sure, but the bubbles are still in there somewhere' When I'm stabilizing it's clear when bubbles stop indicating saturation of the piece you're working on--I stop at that point and remove the anchoring plate I have in the stabilizing solution and make sure the pieces are non-floating, so I reasoned out that the resin will be pulled in to the point it can't get in any more-not sure of the technical viability of any of that, I will say that I have done a ton of pen blanks, and they have worked well--I've sold a bunch of pens using them and never had a complaint about one of them.
 
I use both to be honest--I do prefer the slower set time resin as you mentioned. Both set so fast it's only and issue of work time to me--I'm never in a real hurry it seems to wait for the resin to set up.
I have been pouring the excess resin I have into a dixie cup, and then making a nice bottle stopper blank out of the cured resin blocks. I've been thinking about pouring some into a knife scale mold and see what kind of resin block I end up with that way....
 
Yep. Thats why I always combine the dregs if it's enough to spin a trinket or keyfob or something out of. I guess I should just get some honeycomb cut up and use it for making scales now that I have more molds.



Tonight I tested my theory about the weakness in the bond and freezing temperatures. I noticed this morning that the blue one was weeping. Which means I failed to mix it properly and somewhere under the surface there was a bit that did not cure. I attribute this to not taking the time to warm up side B, which gets quite viscous, almost like colloidal silica over time and it should be warmed up to mix. I skipped that to do the write up and paid the price.

However, I was right. I chucked it in the freezer for a couple hours and was able to first chip away a portion with a chisel, and then pop the remaining out without really damaging the wood. I won't say it came out easy, and now I'm glad this happened because I feel better about the structural integrity of these things now under normal conditions. It took quite a bit of careful chiseling in just the right places. It's not like if you dropped it in the cold it would have popped out.

So now I will be able to save this piece and recast it.

Fm8YY1U.jpg
 
I think I can see where you had to whack it with the chisel--I agree with all your conclusions there brother--might be cool to cast it with a complimentary color to the blue--like a silvery swirl--just a thought.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top