On Wed, 25 May 2005 10:00:25 -0700, "Leif Thorvaldson"
wrote:

====A few years ago,I went down that road with the FPL and, if I remember
correctly, didn't even get a reply. I also sent an email to Proctor and
Gamble setting forth the issue and got a non-responsive, politely dismissive
answer from them. As to all the sound and fury emitting above, I am of the
feeling that an interested, motivated person with a half-way decent
microscope could set up an experiment viewing the action of LDD in the
presence of wood cells. I am now accepting donations for the purchase of an
electron microscope.*G* A number of years ago, Lyn Mangiameli attempted to
run a survey on the use of LDD but got so few responses that no conclusive
data could be derived from it.

As it stands now, as it did a few years ago, we are left only with anecdotal
"evidence" as the efficacy of LDD. I haven't been able to turn for a couple
of years due to back and leg problems, so only have maybe three year's
experience with it. As I have had a sovereign experience with it, I highly
recommend it. In that time, I have not had to study the nature of wood, as
it seems LDD manages to trump such considerations. "Fait ce que voudra" as
our Eastern Canadian turners might say. In more usual 'Merikin parlance:
"Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances!"*G*


Well, I've done two turnings with wet wood, one with LDD, the other
without. Neither were bowls, they were both lamp forms of
approximately the same height and diameter. with the same finishing
method. The one treated with LDD is still looking like it did when I
took it off the lathe, and the other has a large crack on either side.

No, that isn't scientific- it's not even a good hypothesis yet, but it
is a good avenue for possible investigation, and well worth the chance
taken with free wood!

After all this hullaballo, I'm going to make sure to keep a record of
things, and try and come up with something that is at least a little
better than a mystical alchemical property. *G*