DIYbanter - Stabilizing wood with detergent

On Monday, March 19, 2001 3:28:05 PM UTC-4, "Clifford A. Johnston" wrote:
I have been interested in trying to find an inexpensive way of stabilizing
green wood for turning purposes for some time. One "replacement method"
left the wood with a waxy finish and had some other draw backs (cost being
one). I tried to follow up on ESP-90 and got nowhere. They haven't even
answered my email. Then I came across Ron Kent's web site.

Ron Kent has stabilized wood by treating it with a liquid detergent. I
decided to try his methodology on a piece of Live Oak that I had cut down
about 8 weeks ago.

In Ron's article (off the top of my head; therefore, subject to error) he
mentions that he is just experimenting with liquid dishwashing detergent and
has found it to be suitable and inexpensive. It allows for easier cutting
with less checking and wasted vessels/time/material/money. It does not
alter his finishes; indeed, he feels that it enhances the wood. His
methodology is just basically brushing on the concentrate 6 or so times
over a period of several days and letting it dry. He raises questions about
diluting it, immersion treating the wood, etc., but just hasn't gotten that
far and/or hasn't documented it yet online.

I decided to give it a go. I first tried brushing on the liquid detergent
[Costco's brand, Kirkland Clout Ultra (antibacterial hand soap/dishwashing
detergent) - $5.99/gallon. I recall that the Palmolive brand was slightly
less expensive, but I shied away from it because of its green color which
may or may not affect the wood.] Personally I found brushing it on to be a
pain - I am prone to being sloppy with a paint brush. It also raised
questions with me about how much to brush on and how often and how thick.
In addition, how would I know what the penetration was? It really seemed
like a shot in the dark method to me. Not that my next choice was all that
much more scientific!

My next attempt was to soak the wood. I had a 3 gallon plastic bucket.
Into it I poured 1/2 gallon of the liquid detergent and water to cover the
oak which I put in. The oak was a 12" length x 10" diameter piece of live
oak cut in half lengthwise. I then added a slab of spalted live oak on top
and put a brick on top of everything to hold it immersed. I screwed on the
bucket top and went to Toronto to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. (We had our
usual fun fest - my wife is Irish Roman Catholic and I'm Scots/Irish
Presbyterian of Orange Lodge member ancestry! We had a great time until we
found out that the pub owner was English - but that's another story.) I let
the wood soak for 7 days. Today I took it out to dry.

A couple of comments. I left the bark on. The tannic acid in the bark(?)
leached out and tinted the spalted oak slab very pleasantly. The oak trunk
sections also appear to be stained nicely. I don't know how deep this
staining goes, yet. The detergent/water mixture is a dark brown. I may use
it on a piece of kiln dried maple as an experiment just to see what the
effect is. Some minor radial checking on the ends of the large oak halves
closed up, as expected, from absorbing the liquid. The question now is,
"How long should I let it dry before attempting to turn it?" I don't know.
I'll keep an eye on it and perhaps turn one piece in 7 days and then another
piece 7 days later. I'll try to keep you all posted on my progress and the
results.

As far as the dilution of the detergent mix goes, this was probably a 3 or
4:1 mix of water:detergent. I didn't measure it out exactly - I'll take the
time to precisely calculate it later. I'll see how this works first before
trying any other dilution. How did I choose this dilution for the first
effort - strictly a SWAG decision.

If anyone else out there is thinking of trying this for stabilizing wood
perhaps we could coordinate our efforts and keep track of what we are
attempting to stabilize, the water:detergent ratio, drying time, wood
species, dimensions, etc., etc..

I would be more than willing to keep track of this in some sort of table
form and make it available for future reference purposes.

Any and all comments/suggestions/criticisms are welcomed.

Cliff. Johnston
Stephenville, TX
"Round and round I go."

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I am heading in the same direction as you I would love to hear how you are doing with it.

jordonkitt