Cactus Juice

[martin.pearson]

I did some work for a customer on the CNC machine some time ago where they supplied the wood, Elm in this case & some of it was Elm Bur, I was able to make some blanks from the scrap & turned a few pens but quite a bit of it was to soft to be able to do anything with as it was. I looked at using cactus juice but it seemed to be a bit on the expensive side for me especially as I was completely new to hand turning.
So bit further down the tracks now & was looking at these bits of wood today, I am sure it would make some very attractive pens so the two questions are, how expensive is cactus juice & is there an alternative that is a bit more cost effective?
When I say how expensive is it I don't mean the cost per litre (or pint if you prefere) but more the cost per pen blank, I realise that is not an easy question to answer as some blanks will obviously absorb more juice than others but an average figure would give me some sort of idea.

 

[Bammer]

You are right when you say it's a difficult question to answer per blank. I have never bothered to work it out.

It's not just the juice that costs, approx £110 a gallon but you need the proper gear, vacuum pump and vacuum chamber. Plus you need somewhere to cook it off, it stinks a bit so doing it in the oven would not make to flavour of the month.

You can use thin CA to harden the wood as you turn, use activator to help speed it up, sharp tool and light cuts.

How many blanks you got ? 1 or 2 I wouldn't worry too much but if you got loads I could do a batch for you.

Brad

 

[Penpal]

From Brad who knows,special offer Martin.

Peter.

 

[martin.pearson]

You are right when you say it's a difficult question to answer per blank. I have never bothered to work it out.

It's not just the juice that costs, approx £110 a gallon but you need the proper gear, vacuum pump and vacuum chamber. Plus you need somewhere to cook it off, it stinks a bit so doing it in the oven would not make to flavour of the month.

You can use thin CA to harden the wood as you turn, use activator to help speed it up, sharp tool and light cuts.

How many blanks you got ? 1 or 2 I wouldn't worry too much but if you got loads I could do a batch for you.

Brad

I do lots of different things Brad one of which is work with carbon fibre & resin so I already have vac pumps, degassing chambers, an oven & an industrial unit to work from so it's really just the juice. If I didn't have an oven at the unit it wouldn't be a problem as I'm divorced & live on my own so what goes in the oven at home isn't a problem lol

Not sure how many blanks I would get from these bits to be honest but should be able to work out a rough sort of number, if I were to pay someone like yourself to do it for me would I be best cutting it into single blanks or just leaving as lumps of wood? Thought it might be best to leave as larger pieces as some of it's a bit soft & crumbly.

Oh meant to say that I have used thin CA adding as required while turning but I think some of this is to soft for that, or it may be just my lack of experience, saw something called Ronseal wet rot wood hardener & wondered if something like that would work

 

[Lons]

Oh meant to say that I have used thin CA adding as required while turning but I think some of this is to soft for that, or it may be just my lack of experience, saw something called Ronseal wet rot wood hardener & wondered if something like that would work

Brads solution is best but I have tried wood hardner on some extremely soft black roots, don't know what species but you could crumble it by rubbing between fingers and it ended up hard enough to turn with care.

I just covered the blanks with the hardner in a container for about a week, turning them over every day then drained off and allowed to dry for another couple of weeks. The excess fluid went back in a tin to be used again but it's surprising how much was taken up by the wood.

 

[Phil Dart]

I might be missing something here and I'm more than happy to be told that I'm wrong, but given that the juice not only fills the gaps in the wood, but also gets pulled into the fibres of the wood too, particularly on very soft pieces, is it not a fair assumption that the volume of liquid used will more or less be equal to the volume of wood being stabilised?

Or is that over-simplifying things?

It certainly wouldn't be any greater than the volume of the wood, so if you based your calculations on volume for volume, that would give you the worst case scenario, which might then improve a by a margin in practice.

 

[wm460]

Dont know if you can get some thing similar or in UK, but Earls wood hardener makes rotten wood rock hard.

Earl's 250ml Wood Hardener | Bunnings Warehouse

 

[Bammer]

I might be missing something here and I'm more than happy to be told that I'm wrong, but given that the juice not only fills the gaps in the wood, but also gets pulled into the fibres of the wood too, particularly on very soft pieces, is it not a fair assumption that the volume of liquid used will more or less be equal to the volume of wood being stabilised?

Or is that over-simplifying things?

It certainly wouldn't be any greater than the volume of the wood, so if you based your calculations on volume for volume, that would give you the worst case scenario, which might then improve a by a margin in practice.

You are Wrong ! .... Happy now ?

Cactus Juice does not fill gaps. It's a liquid, how the hell is it going to fill a gap Mr Dart .... . I so loved typing that ...


The juice does get pulled into the fibres. The vacuum process sucks out the air, sucks in the juice. Then when it's cooked off it hardens leaving you with a stable piece of wood. The guys in the US seems to like everything stabalised, not sure why but they do.

I have no idea how much the wood uses, but I know Poplar burr uses far more than buckeye which doesn't use as much as spalted beech which uses more than Elm but not as much as x cut English Walnut ..... and so on

 

[Phil Dart]

You are Wrong ! .... Happy now ?

It has been known before. There was an occasion in 1987 in think.

 

[Penpal]

He was beside himself his favourite position.

Peter.

 

[Paul hd]

If you have all the expensive parts to stabilise then get a litre of the stuff and try it out.

 

[martin.pearson]

If you have all the expensive parts to stabilise then get a litre of the stuff and try it out.

When I looked at this previously I could only buy cactus juice by the gallon & at about £100 it was more than I could afford to spend to experiment or for a few blanks, if you can buy by the litre then I will have another search unless someone can tell me where I can buy smaller quantities lol

 

[Les ELm]

If you only have a few pieces.

Les

 

[Paul hd]

When I looked at this previously I could only buy cactus juice by the gallon & at about £100 it was more than I could afford to spend to experiment or for a few blanks, if you can buy by the litre then I will have another search unless someone can tell me where I can buy smaller quantities lol

Here you go.

http://www.metalclay.co.uk/cactus-juice-stabilizing-resin-946ml-us-quart/

Stick fast from Turners retreat do the same size but it is similar price.

 

[martin.pearson]

Thank you both for the suggestions, will have another look at purchasing some now lol