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Yet Another Wood Treatment To Look Into

While he was helping me find the parts for the Wire Ferrel and Steel (or brass) Wire Wall Thickness Gauge in the Jan 2008 issue of Fred Holder's magazine (also available on Wood Central's turning forum, put there by the author/inventor), the Ace Hardware guy who was helping me find things turned out to be a woodworker and turner.

In high school, he turned his own baseball bats - four part laminated bats that had quarter sawn rain all the way round - and "boned" them on the lathe to compress the surface wood. Harder bats make balls go farther, all other things being equal.

Now here's where the serendipity comes in. He worked at a swimming pool and used muriatic acid to clean filters. Somehow a piece of wood got into the bucket of muriatic acid. For some unexplainable reason, when he took it out he kept it.

A few days later he found it, discolored to a light gray. Just for fun he decided to drill some holes in it. For some reason the wood was unusually difficult to drill. He sanded off all the gray and tried staining the piece, expecting the end grain to absorb more stain, and become darker. It didn't. So in addition to apparently making the wood harder, the muriatic soaking seemed to have sealed the end grain as well.

Any alchemists out there have any experience with this muriatic "treatment" or a possible explanation of why it would make wood harder - and seal end grain?

charlie b

Reply to
charlieb
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Well, in a cylinder, that's impossible, of course. Has to have two faces, two quarters.

Well, chlorine is a strong oxidizer - bleach - and if he boned, which is to say burnished and case-hardened the wood, it'd be tough for it to absorb an oil stain.

Don't think any of what you suggest happened, but open for suggestions.

Reply to
George

Impossible, kemosabe? "Of course"?? Engage your brain, though I personally would not make a bat this way - but I've only made one, anyway.

4 parts, 2 quarters, 2 other quarters, never more than 45 degrees off quarter (at the glue-lines). If the Stickley folks can do it with oak table legs (and they did/do), a turner can do it with a bat if he wants to. Just six more "impossible" things and you can have breakfast...
Reply to
Ecnerwal

On a square leg you only see the quarter, but once you circle, you can't avoid rift and face. Draw it out.

Reply to
George

Ah - the wonders of terms and definitions - and their context. For a sawyer, "plain sawn" (aka "through & through"), "riftsawn" and "quarter sawn" describe a procedure for sawing up a log. To a lumber grader it's how the grain intersects the "show face" that's the criteria.

To the furniture maker looking for "flecks" in oak, sycamore and other woods with prominent medullary rays it's the visible flecks on the show face of the board.

To a structural engineer it's the structural strength of the material and how the grain orientation affects strength that's important.

And to an instrument maker looking for tone, it's yet another set of critria for the definition. Technically, quarter sawn is when the growth rings intersect the show face anywhere between 75 and 90 degrees acrossed the entire show face.

If you're a furniture maker who wants table or chair legs to have "straight grain" (as opposed to "arch/flame/cathedral" grain) on at least two show faces, preferably on all four show faces - perhaps to have a "fleck pattern" on the show faces - a piece of square wood with grain intersecting each face at 45 degrees is what you look for when asking for "quarter sawn" boards.

Then there's the "radial", "tangential" and "end" grain thing.

Anyway, the idea for the laminated bat was to get as much "quarter sawn" grain around the potential contact area or the bat as possible. Four squares of 45 degrees to each face would be the optimal grain orientation.

Contact Face A +----+-----+ +----+-----+ Contact |\\\\|////| | | | | | | | | | | Face +----+-----+ | | | | | | | | | | B |////|\\\\| | | | | | | | | | | +----+-----+ +----+-----+

Was an interesting side track though.

And when it comes to athletes and their equiptment, if voodoo works they'll use it (along with human growth hormones, steroids and other "performance enhancing drugs"). Then there's the Placebo Effect - if you think it will help - it just might.

charlie b

Reply to
charlieb

"charlieb" wrote: (clip) Then there's the Placebo Effect - if you think

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ So, if the batter THINKS his bat is corked, he can hit harder? Sounds like a strategy for a clever coach. And if you give the batter flax seed oil, and tell him to pretend he thought it was flax seed oil, his performance will improve?

Reply to
Leo Lichtman

charlieb wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@accesscom.com:

Ho Hum.

Reply to
Hank

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