Re: Alcohol Drying

I, on the other hand, hate to see people wasting time and money doing unnecessary things. Leave out the alcohol and do the rest for the same results.

I suggested a proper experimental procedure to verify any claims the last time you were promoting it for your magazine. Have you tried it yet? I know that Dave hasn't.

Of course, if the soak, as the Q-Ray, makes you feel better in some unspecified (anyone find any specifics ?) way, do it.

You mean Dave plagiarized it?

I have given both you and Fred a lot of material to examine, and a suggestion of how to perform a meaningful evaluation, along with my results. Experimental data, the chemists and the wood technologists are also powerful recommendations. Especially when they involve objective, not subjective evaluation.

Recent government studies provide a diffusing effect for this thread and show that most green logs can be effectively dried by merely removing dihydrogen monoxide, the metabolic end product of its two inorganic precursors, shackled hydrogen and free oxygen. These chemicals, a combination of which is found abundantly in the cellulose of most all green logs is generally food safe, but ingesting large quantities or inhaling this substance can have multiple adverse effects and it should be disposed of promptly in water tight containers.

The chemical formula for its aquous organic state looks a lot like third order hexagonal chicken wire, and when wrapped and squeezed around a green log has a bark removing and even a mild drying effect on green timber.

As with most of the drying methods suggested here, further work should be done as dihydrogen monoxide and its organic cohabitant can convert the new powdered steels to a watered down oxide that discolors artful turnings and destroys costly gouges.

It has also been shown empirically that in humans, chronic use of some alcohols has an unintended opposite effect than has been reported on rcw for wood. Surprisingly, alcohol can actually be a wetting agent in some humans, producing an old soak effect that may require drying out.

Here's to ya! or as we used to say so thoughtlessly, "HTH".

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Wow! You think that DHM could be as dangerous as Hydrogen Hydroxide? Perhaps George could enlighten the group further being the expert he is.

Greg

Are you aware of the hazards of DiHydrogen Monoxide?

More than 90% of ALL crimes were committed within 24 hours of using DHM. Many acids are more powerful with the addition of DHM. Most drugs use DHM in production or processing. DHM is present in many poisons. Once someone has used DHM, even once, they become addicted for life - requiring fixes of as much as 32 ounces a day, or more.

Help stamp out DHM abuse!

Sorry, couldn't help myself, I'm a DHM user.

Perfesser Irwin Corey ramblings snipped.

FWIW,SWMBO is an RN at a drying out ranch.

HTH? WTH? Maybe HTY? Too much JWRL? :0)

Please translate the last line. FUTDK.

HTH - No idea, Arch had a typo or is making stuff up WTH - What the heck? HTY - What Arch meant to type for "here's to ya' JWRL - Johnny Walker Red Label, but I'd reckon Arch for a single malt

HTH! (Hope that helps.)

Gosh, I hope the treatment takes care of your SWMBO's affliction. It can be a terrible habit to kick!*G*

Leif

Was a little unclear, wasn't I. %)

FWIW, they seem to have a harder time with the drug addicts. I think the alcoholics are better positioned to succeed due the mutual aid they get through AA. Not an inexpensive place to kick a habit either.

Yep, alcohol is used to _dehydrate_ cells for histological examination, too. Note, this is not drying.

In these cases you reference, of course, alcohol is chosen as a solvent for lignin because cellulose does not bind it as it does water, and it can therefore be used as a solvent within a solvent. Your make the case well that it "displaces" no water, which is one of the many incorrect suppositions in the process as posted.

No, dehydration by alcohol is pretty much a mechanical process. Alcohol and water will mix in any proportion, so soaking wet wood in alcohol long enough to get complete mixing would result in a dilute solution of (pick one) alcohol or water. The solution is discarded, replaced with undiluted alcohol, and the process repeated. Picture two partial buckets of sand, one white, one black. Dump equal white into the black, mix thoroughly, take away half. There's only half as much black as there used to be. Add white, discard half of that, and so forth until the proportions are where you want them.

Been a while since lab, but seems there were three or four dilutions on fixed specimens back when. Of course those were some pretty thin samples, so fifteen-minute soak cycle was pretty meaningful. What was removed was the equivalent of "unbound" water in wood.

The water that needs removing from wood is the "bound" water. That's chemically bonded to the sugars that make up the hemi/cellulose - hydrogen bonds. You have to get enough energy into the process to break up the association - low relative humidity or other methods of increasing molecular energy levels, like warming, or both, are the traditional. Dilute with air rather than alcohol, as it were. Easier to discard the air, too.

Chemical processes to disrupt the H bonds would involve something more ionic. Probably something more unpleasant, like sulphuric acid.

George, with your expert knowledge of chemistry and wood science perhaps you could explain to the group how etOH can bind to HOH with no displacement (differential densities considered). So if I fill a glass with water and then pour in some etOH, it won't run over? Guess things work differently where you live or perhaps displacement has more than one meaning.

Eureka!

"Displace" is the word used in the soaking article. One of the definitions of that word in my dictionary is "replace," which is close, but with the sense of pushing aside, another definition, as well.

Whatever floats your boat.

I don't think that any scientist worth his salt would want to refute Arch.

Some things a re better left alone.