Call Making Trivia - about Stabilized wood

[cjcalls]

One more thing I want to add.
You have to pull a vacuum to get the poly in and the air out.
You could spend a lot of money on a vacuum pump. Or you could just use a Venturie like this
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=3952
for $15.00. Put a valve on you tank behind you gauge. Pull your vacuum and close the valve.
Works great.


Clint.

[THO Game Calls]

Cool info.  I have been saying for years now that the Pen Turners have a lot of info that pertains almost directly to what we do.   I luck on many of thier sites as well as a few knife making sites.

Glad someone else feels the same way about it  :)

AL
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com

[MattS]

Great find clint.  I have been wanting to make a vacuum chamber to put my molds in to get those pesky air bubbles out.  I guess I am going to have make another trip to harbor freight.  I hate that place.  I can never go in there and just get what I wanted.

[Ladobe]

As Clint said, to efficiently stabilize the woods that can be stabilized completely the chamber has to be under vacuum.   Stabilization is sped up if the chamber and contents are also heated BTW.   Soaking wood in whatever is very slow and a very poor alternative - will not stabilize most of the denser and highest grade hardwoods.   Depending on what the viscosity of whatever you are trying to stabilize with is, it may not penetrate much below the surface of the wood unless you let it soak for months or even years.   

That Harbor Freight pump (28Hg at sea level) is only barely capable of creating enough vacuum for a very small chamber.   It'll work, but will be slow and can't process much wood at a time.   If you try one I'd recommend keeping the chamber to quart size, and plan on doing at least a couple of 12 hours sessions in it for every batch of 2-3 call blanks.   I think this will be pretty close to what it would do, because of previous experience with a similar setup.

I'm on my third wood stabilization setup and now have one that works similar to what the companies use (on a much smaller scale naturally).   But my first one was similar to what you'd get from that HF pump.   For my first one I used an automotive vacuum pump filtered brake bleeder kit and wide  mouth Mason jars for the chambers.   Came with all the fittings, hose, gauge, valves, etc, and was capable of more than 28 Hg.   It worked OK, but could only stabilize on average 2 call blanks in a 24-36 hour time period depending on wood species/grade (plus curing time).

Another tid bit... the products sold to dry or stabilize wood may work, but they are expensive and many of them are toxic.   Some research and checking MSDS's can lead to finding cheaper off the shelf products or chemicals that will work as well and be less or non toxic.

FWIW,

Ladobe

[cjcalls]

You are correct.
This is not a set up for doing large scale mass production.
It will do you a blank at a time with good results and low cost.
I've used this set up quite a few times for some Special pieces I didn't have time to send off and have stabilized.



Clint