I understand the drying effects of a vacuum as liquids such as water boil away quite easily under reduced pressure. I would vacuum any piece first for this reason alone. I am trying to understand the whole picture.
I also understand the expansion and compression of air under pressure, true liquids to not compress. Besides being an ex diver, I routinely do pressure testing. A scuba diver has to decompress and exhale upon ascension due to breathing compressed air, a free diver does not. Although time at depth affects the time of decompression the main factor is original volumes. The free diver takes in no compressed air and the air already retained is compressed on diving and it can not expand over its original volume upon ascension. Therefore no need to exhale on ascension. The scuba guy needs compressed air to assist his chest to expand and take air in and as he ascents he must exhale the compressed air he ADDED. He needs to decompress to allow the compressed air to work its way out of his system before its expansion blocks things up. But, both are subject to the same outside pressure when submerged.
Now if I first vacuum a piece to dry it and then completely submerge it in a liquid at atmospheric and then pressure it up to say 500psi, the air in the piece would shrink as the liquid pressed in. some of the air would respond to gravity and work is way to the surface and float to the top of the water during the time of compression. Then when bled off the air remaining in the piece would expand to its original volume, MINUS, what ever volume was forced out and escaped to the surface. That would be the amount in volume or liquid retained by the piece.
Now, if I completely submerge a similar piece in liquid and take it to a hard vacuum the liquid it self is under vacuum and has no pressure to press itself into the piece. As a mater of fact many lighter fractions in many liquids would boil off. (thinners and smaller molecules) All forces on the piece should be uniform and only the actual weight and ability of the liquid to soak into the piece should cause displacement. If a part of the piece was exposed the air inside would have a route to the vacuum and as the air left the piece of course its volume would be replace by liquid, but the liquid forces to move into the piece would be hindered by the vacuum exerted on the liquid surface. Upon returning to atmospheric the remaining air in the piece actually effected by the vacuum would shrink a bit and possibly draw in some more liquid.
I would think that a system that alternated between pressure and vacuum with the correct liquid would work well. Best of all if I took a block and drilled and tapped its center and attached it to a tube with vacuum then placed it in a bag of stabilizer and sealed the bag around the tube then pressured up the outside of the bag I would have the best of both worlds. I have a plan on how to do just that. You could also construct a rubber seal on a pressure vessel surface and clamp a uniformly shaped pieces of wood flat to the seal and then cover the wood with stabilizer and close and pressurize the vessel the pressures only escape route being via pressing the liquid thru the wood to atmosphere. I think this would work with a small volume vessel and uniform pieces of wood. Of course if the wood ruptured or the seal failed it would be a mess and care would be needed for safety sake, something like a secondary containment.
What am I missing or where is my physics mistake. Hey, Duh, I am going to save this and run this by my girl friend who teaches college physics.
Ps I have quite a bit of stabilize wood and buy it from solid sources. I just like to experiment at times
