Anchor Seal Alternative

You can buy Anchor Seal directly from UC Coatings. 5 gal is cheaper than 1 gal retail by far. Or, if you can find someone to split a 55 gal drum the cost is pretty good even with shipping. Have you priced candle wax?

Regards, Bill

Good old gulf wax will work, but gallon per gallon, the anchorseal will work. Or, go to Homedepot and get some latex paint from the Oops bin at a couple buck a gallon, it will work, but anchorseal would be better.

Yes, you can. Order it from UC Coatings and you can have it shipped to your door.

Peter Teubel Milford, MA

RP, others have noted that you can get the Anchor Seal delivered which is real handy. If you decide to go the wax route as a short term fix, go get canning wax at the grocery store. Much more economical than candle wax. Also, sealing the ends of logs is a temporary measure at best because most will split in time. It just gives you some breathing room before you have to butcher them.

Jim >

Canning wax is softer than candle wax and I think this would be preferencial. (stearic acid is added to make wax harder)

I live on the dry side of Washington state. We've had 1/16" of rain in the last 2 months. I Anchorseal the ends of my wood and then tarp it with silver tarps, weighting the edge every 4' or so. About once a month I hose the wood down and soak the ground pretty good. This delivered far better results than Anchorseal alone.

Derek

Hello RP,

You havn't time to order in Anchor Seal to save that log. Canning wax or candle wax melted and painted on will help as will some old Latex paint. However, I would immediately cover the endgrain with a piece of plastic. If you have a plastic bag large enough to go over the ends slip it on then tie it down with a piece of string, a bungie cord, etc.

If you use a plastic bag, be sure to reverse it every day or so to cut down on mold or spalting. I kept a piece of wet Madrone in a plastic bag for about two months without even turning the sack. It was not intentional, I just forgot about it. Incidentally, except for a little mold on the outside, the wood was not hurt.

You should rough turn that wood as soon as possible because Anchor Seal, wax, paint, or a plastic bag are only temporary fixes to buy you a little time. Unless you make it thinner by rough turning the log will eventually split in all of the wrong places.

Good luck with it.

Fred Holder

another choice is that you can use old paint - latex, enamel, whatever - here on the left coast, the towns and cities have a place where you can bring old paint (it's a hazardous waste) and drop it off, or if you want some, pick it up. I've used this approach a few times and it seems to work, others on this NG seem to use it more regularly. Paint costs more than the wax emulsions, but free paint is pretty cheap.

bill

RP it might be a bit of a drive, depending on how north you are, but we have a club in Tulsa that meets every third Tuesday of the month. We sell a gallon of green wood sealer (I think it is Anchorseal) for $9.00 a gallon. We buy a 55 gallon drum at a time to keep the price down. Whatever it is it works very well and goes quite a long way.

Our next meeting might be to late for the wood you got. I have an unopened gallon I bought at the last meeting. I work in Claremore and if that is a bit shorter drive I could meet you and get the sealer to you.

Our web site is

Hope to hear from you.

Tim Yoder Woodturners of Northeastern Oklahoma yoda325 at cox dot net

Coincidence, I also aquired a downed tree a couple of weeks ago & had the same dilemma. In the past I have used Anchorseal & also canning wax, preferring to use waxy coatings rather than paint because the wax is more impermeable.

I have heated the wax in an old coffe can sitting in an electric fry pan set at 300F. This seems hot enough without being dangerous (subjective opinion) for the wax to flow while I paint the ends of several logs.

Now a revelation, A NEW USE FOR LDD!

Having just run out of Anchorseal, it occured to me that I might be able to make my own emulsion to extend the amount of wax. My old chemistry knowledge is a bit rusty, but I seemed to recall that oil & water can be mixed using a detergent or by using high speed mixing, such as a blender. Deciding on the detergent route & doing some rough experiments I found it possible to make a mix of wax, chain bar oil (to lower the wax melting point), water & YESSS, LDD.

The recipe is not exact as I cook like my grandmother. Just eyeballing the ingredients as they are thrown into the stew. Besides, I guess there is a lot of leeway for what will work. A starting point would be wax & oil, about 1:1 ratio heated in the can. When that is melted, mix in another 1 part of water that has some LDD liberally squirted in. After cooking & disolving, apply to the wood.

I have purchased parafin wax from the local craft store, they have 1 &

The resultant coating is thin & soft & resembles the Anchorseal finish.

Bill Kram

Absolutely. Mentioned the blender, wax and surfactant approach as an alternative a while back.

The surfactant is what helps the non-polar molecules of the wax stay suspended in the polar solvent.

What is LDD? Inquiring minds want to know!

Also to RP Edington: where is this forest of walnut trees and logs that you just "came into"? Actually how do any of you guys manage to just walk into such great deals?

Patty

Liquid Dishwashing Detergent

Keep your eyes open, ask around. I'm always on the lookout for people cutting trees, myself. Particularly if they're professionals. I stop and ask them about how they dispose of their wood, and ask if I can have a piece of whatever they're cutting, tell them why I want it, give them my business card and ask to be called, if they need help getting rid of other wood. Call the tree surgeons in your area and ask them for wood, look for areas where they're widening the road or trimming trees from around electric poles, make friends with a logger or two.

It also helps that I live in the middle of the Adirondack Park, surrounded by trees and half the people around here are loggers.. [Just a little drive-by gloat, there.]

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

Since I'm not thrilled about putting bar & chain oil on my wood, might some other oil (such as a more traditional oil for finishing) work as well ?

The price of Anchorseal depends on how much you use, and where you live. I get a 5-gallon bucket delivered for $ 40.00, and if a club purchases a 55 gallon barrel and dispenses it to the members, its even cheaper.

Safe Spinning,

Brad Vietje Thetford, VT

Sure. In the petroleum business, oils and waxes are just fractions, oil being lighter overall. If you like mineral oil, just to stay in the inorganic mode, use it.

Actually, bar and chain oil might be a good idea: they are usually formulated with a "tackifier" most probably polyisobutylene that increases "stickiness" a bit. It could give a better protective coating. Usually, you end up cutting an inch or more of the log end away and that's deeper than any surface applied material will penetrate.

Kip Powers Rogers AR (The chemist in me slips out now and then)

First, I don't use the commercial or my homemade on turnings. It has proven to be more of a mildew-enhancer than anything else. I have excellent luck drying "normal" turnings - the kind without too many knots and such - by simply keeping them in open air. When I save a well-figured piece of firewood for resaw or possible turning, I use the remnants of my one gallon of Anchorseal or my homebrew oil-softened wax.

As a former GI, I recall water emulsion wax well, and Anchorseal seems very much like thick water emulsion wax. Even has that faint alcohol smell, which I attribute to the surfactant. I would use a nonionic surfactant (alcohol ethoxylates most common) for its low sudsing properties, a blender I did not have to answer to SWMBO for, and warm water to help emulsify the wax. Chemistry is simple, proportions not, since the concentration of the surfactant you buy may not be the same as someone else's. Proponents of LDD are using probably a 2% anionic surfactant, diluting from there.

Keeping the troops busy. Like digging trenches and filling them again.

I recall an effort in the early days of the "all volunteer force" when a civilian contractor was hired to do the floors. He did - with acrylics. They shone like a diamond, but there were no buff marks to show effort. Within a month we had returned to a regular GI detail , washing and buffing our soft, water-emulsion waxed floors every day so the general could see the result of effort.