Magic liquid

PEG was used to preserve green stock of many a rifle stock. One normally doesn't eat off a stock and the stock was varnished.

Mart> >

pentacryl (key word) ross

Pentacryl is usually used for soft or punky wood to harden it.

I think OP is looking (see reference to green wood) for a "drying" solution to assist in his turning efforts when turning green wood.

Phil - use Google to search this group and put in LDD as Ralph suggested. Try a few variants such as "detergent drying" etc.

It was a civil war here a few years ago as some thought it worked, some didn't, some changed their minds, and some went to alcohol soaks.

Lots of folks spent lots of time looking up and quoting the science of why it worked, and just as many cited their research and sources as to why it couldn't.

Robert

As soon as I even approach an alcohol soak, the power tools (and hand tools for that matter) immediately get put away. . . . . . . Oh wait... you meant, er, uhm, a different sort of alcohol soak? . . . . Never mind.

Ed

Hello again pentacryl is not a hardening agent, it is used for stabilizing. I have used it many times on ash burl to prevent checking. used it on everything from fireplace mantle to knife scales to guitar blanks. Ross

Ed

Who left you out of rmmga? See you at EC

Quoting the below web site :

"Green Wood Stabilizer

American Woodworker, April, 2000

I like turning bowls from green wood. I go out to the back 40, cut myself a sizable chunk of wood and go to it. What I don't like is when the finished product cracks so badly I can see through it. Pentacryl, from Preservation Solutions, is the answer for turners, carvers or anyone who wnats to stabilize green wood. Pentacryl is a polymer compound that soaks into wood. It can be brushed or sprayed on, or you can immerse the wood in a bucketful. Immersion gives you the best results. Use the stuff right out of the bottle - no mixing required. And unlike PEG, it's a liquid at room temperature; so no heating is required. Total time for complete absorption depends on the wood, but plan on about one day of immersion per inch of meterial thickness. Once it's into the wood, Pentacryl stabilizes the wood cells to reduce or eliminate both warping and cracking. "

Mart>

LOL! Happy New Year, Dan.

Ed

LOL. Before I start that kind of soak, the tools are long stored. That kind of soak makes me lazy (besides other things!).

Robert

Yes it is. You can probably guess how "scientific" the approach to other methods is when you realize nobody even looked it up.

LDD soaking. I am a big fan of it. I first read about it here. For my style of turning, which is green wood to final thickness (3/16 to 1/2 inch thick), let it dry and warp, then sand, the only thing the soap does is make the wood a LOT easier to sand out. It does NOTHING measurable to improve drying time, stability, or cracking. The same with the DNA soaking (this does seem to make the wood harder). I say this after observations on maybe 1,000 bowls DNA soaked, several thousand LDD soaked, and many others air dried. I even did a test where I weighed a set of bowls each day till they were dry. The results could be different for the thick turned bowls which are dried and then returned, but I don't do that style.

As far as the drying part goes, if you dry too fast, it cracks. If you dry too slow, it molds. The idea is to control the drying process. This is why people put the bowls in bags (paper or plastic), and/or shavings, and old refrigerators with a light bulb, or seal them after turning. The method I am using now is taken from one thing the DNA advocates do. I will wrap the outside of the bowl with a couple of layers of newspaper, then secure that to the rim of the bowl with a couple of wraps of plastic film (the 6 inch stuff that is used to keep boxes on pallets). This is wrapped while stretching it out so that there is some pressure on the rim. I then cut out the paper on the inside of the bowl. It is then placed on the floor of the shop, keeping the inside open, for a few days, then up on a wire shelf. The idea is that the inside of the bowl dries quicker than the outside, and as it shrinks, it pulls the outside into the inside, kind of putting it in a compression mode. This has greatly reduced the cracking that I get in my bowls. This has been especially effective with Madrone which is the most difficult wood to dry that I have ever come across. Drying time is from one to two weeks. I have done bowls where I only wrap the rim with the plastic, and the success is pretty much the same. I do take care to round over the sharp edges on the rim of the bowl. This is another key to bowl drying. The sharp edges are more prone to starting cracks than the rounded over edges are, because it is such a small edge that it drys faster than the main part of the bowl.

robo hippy

On Jan 3, 3:14 am, "George" wrote:

Great information on the subject. It is hard to find someone that has done that kind of testing on both LDD and DNA. Although I never tried either method, I remember how much time was devoted by both sides of the "drying in liquid" issue for a 2 -3 years.

I don't turn really large objects, so for me I usually just put the rough turned pieces in plastic bags loosely packed with shavings. After a week or two, I punch holes in the bag to help let the moisture out.

If I see a change in color or I can smell them, I pour out the shavings and put in dry shavings. If I am looking to force spalt wood, I leave the bags alone for a couple of weeks when they start to discolor and smell. It gives mixed results, but spalted wood is almost non existent in South Texas.

The bag drying method works really well around here. While some pieces may distort their shapes, I rarely lose any thing altogether.

Robert

Maybe it's South Florida's climate or statistically invalid sampling with no controls, or just another tiresome anecdote by a senile turner, but it "seems" to me that LDD does have an effect unique to Norfolk Island pine. I think the original reports of its usefulness concerned NIP.

I remove the bark and rough turn the logs into rounds then slather LDD diluted 1:1 on thickly. The LDD penetrates to the pith of 6 to 8 in logs. They don't crack and after two or three years seem lubricated and easy to spindle or hollow turn and sand. I do store them inside out of sun and rain, but maybe I haven't 'LDDed' enough NIP logs even after turning them for years.

Probably my next one will crack wide open, but I hope others who have turned NIP soaked with LDD will post their experiences, even if they prove me wrong. As I've said before, "There's no Always or Never in woodturning". :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

I don't think your are imagining anything. I have seen pictures of NIP that has been LDD soaked after turning, then final sanded. Something magic happens with that wood, something that doesn't seem to happen with other woods.

I don't know what it is, but it makes the wood almost translucent, and from what I read very easy to sand butter smooth.

I looked, but couldn't find the pics I had of some flair topped bowls that were NIP/LDD, that were gorgeous. I don't think the LDD has that translucent effect on any other woods.

Robert