I have talked to a few of you about my little DYI project. Constructing a simple and cheap home built wood stabilization system. This is all still in trial but... I found a medical vaccum pump for $10 and a flea market pressure cooker for $5 (and probably coulda got em cheaper
). A few dollars in air fittings, some I already had. My guage and dial for the pressure side of things was a whole $6. So, for about $30 I rigged up a system which allows me to do small pieces. The process is to vaccum the wood to pull out all air for a period and to begin pulling stabilizing material into the wood. Then I switch to a pressure side and put the wood under pressure to push the material into the wood. Dont have a clue about time and rate but I figure that will work out in time. I can switch from vaccum to pressure with out any air getting back into the system. For my first trial I choose to use miniwax wood hardener. Mostly because it is available locally. So here are some pics.
I started with a container within the pressure cooker to contain the fluid. 2 pieces of crotch butternut and 1 piece of cherry burl in one full can /pint of hardener.
minwax product. Pours like water so its pretty thin to start
The system in functional condition.
Results after 24 hours of vaccum and pressure are the next pics. Notice that there is very little hardener left. Some bled off as gas but I think most went into the wood. And the final product. It will need to dry beofre cutting. But we shall soon see how it worked.
