Small Vacuum Chamber Dying more wood 4 colors at once

[Hukk]

Well I have a few pieces of wood being dyed at the moment. Sometimes you get "different requests" and you need to "invent" a way of getting someting done. I got this 2.5 gallon paint cannistor from Harbour Freight for $39.99 which is a pretty good deal since it's stainless steel and the inside is lined with teflon so clean up is a piece of cake.

The requests this time was for some stabilized "Tiger Curl" Maple dyed Black.

Another was a bit more interesting, a guy was looking for some wood that had a fiddleback pattern, so, I chose Movingui from Africa. The somewhat odd request was this needed to be OD Green. Well I think I got that done with a mix of wood dyes from K&G, at least the dye is a magnificent color of Army OD Green. Here is where I got the Movingui and what it looks like; http://www.cookwoods.com/Movingui.htm

After the last TWO, getting spalted Maple to be yelow is a snap. Here's a look at my set up.

This cannister is supposed to take continuous 80LBS PSI and it does. I don't think I need that much so I stayed around 35LBS for a week, I just hooked it to the compressor and then let it sit for a week.

Well now it time for negative pressure and I got a small hand pump that is used in brake work to create a vacuum - just something simple till I get the refrigerator compessor configured for vacuum pump. I use this calculator to convert Inches of Mercury (hg) to PSI.
http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/ccpress.htm

When I finish silver soldering the copper on the copressor, I should easily get more vacuum than I need and will suck the dye right up into the wood - 44.8 inches of hg. I have a vacuum guage around here some place. that should translate to 22 PSI. with that much vacuum, I may be able to dye the wood in less than a week.

What's nice about this set up is that I can put 4 1 liter mason jars and do 4 colors at once.

It's kind of fun to figure these out, it does get in the way of other stuff though.

I have another I'll share tomorrow about spalting your own wood. Another experiment that could prove worth while since spalted wood always costs way more $$$.

[4ever3]

Very cool Hukk, how did it turn out ?

[Hukk]

I'm still pulling a vacuum, I figure it will be a 2 week deal in the dye. The tricky part is going to be getting those to dry without having a cracking issue and each type of wood is going to dry a bit different. I will pull them out next weekend.

It would be nice to open the chamber up and take half of each type of wood and try to dry each half with a different method. I can't use chemicals cause that would interfere with stabilization later on.

It may be wise to try some sort of moist heat, I can try to use a larger chamber I built and put a heater element inside. Keep it sealed and at a low heat, there's likely enough moisture in the wood to keep a chamber at very high humidity for quite some time. I have a hygrometer in the shop, I can watch the humdity with that, I guess, I got a week to figure it out.

[Ringmaster]

Hi Hukk,

This is not advice, just a thought...

What about using paraffin on the ends of the blanks ? Perhaps a half-inch. That way the wood would be forced to dry from the center, vice the ends ? (Still wouldn't prevent warping, tho.)

When it's dry and ready to use, the wax will grind off instantly.

G'luck,
JR

[gringo]

ok, i must have graduated from state of confusion....doesn't a vacumn REMOVE moisture?

really, freeze dryed just means moisture removed by vacumn?

donald

[Hukk]

Well, A piece of wood in a vacuum in a open jar of dye. Think of the wood as a straw sucking up the dye. I took them out today and the jars were half empty. Some of the dye is vaporized and all over the inside of the container, but those are some real heavy pieces of wood. To dry, I decided to sit them on the east side of the shop - the jars upside down after dumping the dye. They are sitting on a bucket lid and I will place a piece of plywood over the whole works, trying not to have them dry out to fast. Right now they are like full sponges, to wet to seal the ends. They have to drain a bit first.

They did soak up a lot of dye.

It's a different application from freeze drying in that the wood acts like a wick.

[Hukk]

Here is a picture of 3 jars, 4 will go in tomorrow. The glass jar over the wood on plastic (just a lid for a 5 gallon bucket) was the only way I could think of offhand to help dry it slowly. Then I just keep a piece of plywood over it to keep off sunlight. I think that will allow it to dry slow enough. There are other things I can do also.

You can see that a lot of color are on some. Also AHEM, I will switch to wide mouth jars I think. The wood is so swelled that it will not come out of the jars.

[gringo]

i may not understand the process, but the wood looks great...good thing those are not collectable jars..

[Hukk]

i may not understand the process, but the wood looks great...good thing those are not collectable jars..

They are pretty badly stained, but it's a water base stain so I assume it will come off. I need to experiment with cleaning the ones I don't break, really not worth it if I have to bust a jar for every few sticks of wood.

The wide mouth jars should get rid of the problem and for a big batch, I can just use the cannister for 5 lbs of wood - no jar. Or I can use the big tank and do 25 lbs of wood really easy.

[4ever3]

Looking good Hukk ! I like the Green

[Hukk]

Thanks, He wanted OD green and I think I managed to hit that one OK. Need to check them, the inverted jar was to help prevent cracking as the wood dries, but was around 85 or so here yesterday. I'll see if they ar still un-cracked.