Wood in water is well-preserved, that's for sure, but osmosis is about
solute, not just solvent, and I'm not sure that's what we want, given the
wood has dissolved salts as well. The problem is that "bound" water, not
the casual stuff.

Keeping the surface evaporation equal to the capillary flow from the wood is
what we want. If we get a higher rate of evaporation than the interior can
replace, we'll get checking as the expanded interior refuses to collapse
with the dryer exterior. So anything that either slows the surface loss -
high humidity in a bag, in a wax/latex envelope, sitting on a concrete
basement floor - is great. The micro and vacuum people use the principle of
increased flow, one by pressure from within, one by pulling from without,
but they have greater potential for damaging the wood.

Then there are other factors - some woods are more porous than others, some
have huge pores with diminished capillary pull, and then there's the closed
tyloses in the heart versus the open passages in the sapwood, not to mention
orientation and distance between early wood and late wood in trees which
experience cycles of heat/cold or wet/dry versus those which don't.

I don't think there's one size to fit all, but I think that easy is the best
way to go, even if that means delayed gratification.

Oh yes, then there's the advice I got years ago as I researched the pouring
of my first concrete. You can do it so badly as to guarantee failure, but
you can't guarantee success. Sometimes it just cracks.

"Arch" wrote in message
...


Do you think that adding salt to LDD solution might help transfer the
intracellular water by osmosis across
a cell membrane made water-loving? Which is the real perp anyway, intra
or extra cell water? I doubt that inquiring minds give a damn.
Arch