On 23 Oct 2005 11:35:15 -0700, "robo hippy" wrote:

Leif,
How do you handle it to keep it from being a mess. I could see having a
sub-station in the shop dedicated to the LDD processing, but it is
already tight in there, and some one went and won my $350 million
lottery jackpot again. Do you put a rack over the barrel of soap? I am
doing 5 to 20 bowls at a time, so the properly sized rack would be
bigger than the barrel. I hand squeegy off as much as I can, and then
take them to the kitchen sink to rinse them off. With the alcohol, I
shake them off a few times over the pit, and they are almost dry and I
don't have to rinse my hands off.

As far as the color in the soap, there has to be some transfer. If the
pigments are soap soluable, then they will mix. I had one madrone bowl
in the alcohol bath. The alcohol didn't cover the top of the bowl. I
scooped more alcohol into the bowl until it was full. The next day, the
alcohol in the bowl was level with that on the outside. After it dried
and was sanded, there was a very noticable difference in the color
above (darker) and the color below (lighter). On the whole, the bowl
was darker than I expected it to be. It was all darker than what I
would expected an air dried bowl to be. There had been black walnut in
there before the Madrone. I need to get a digital camera to I can show
pictures, and plan to do a more clinical test of the processes.
robo hippy

I sort of gave up on the LDD, but what worked for me at the time were some
medium sized (I think they were about 2 gallon) rectangular tubs from wally
world with snap-on lids.. (on sale for like $5 each)
I set them outside under a patio cover, both to save shop room and to keep
spills, etc. out of the shop..

The drying racks were dumb looking, but built out of junk in the yard...
I heated 1/2" plastic pipe with the heat gun, made sorta round hoops bigger than
the containers and wrapped with heavy string in enough directions to keep bowls
from falling back in..

I'd drain them anywhere from 1/2 an hour to over night... didn't seem to effect
the results, but longer was better for the shop, as long as they still felt
damp.. YMMV


mac

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