Stabilising Spongy Wood - Help

[adamelder]

I've just milled up an elm that had been lying for I don't know how long. A lot of it is spalted. Some of the timber isn't quite rotten but not completely sound either, just a wee bit soft in places. It's very nice so I'd like to keep it as intact as possible.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on if and how it can be stabilised? I know there are wet rot wood hardeners around but I think they're really for timber that's completely gone.

 

I was thinking maybe West Systems might do something?

[Lazurus]

I use thin CA glue, but it will depend on how much you want to stabilize and how much glue you will need. The CA glue really does the job though.......

[slackbladder]

Theres a stuff in the states called Cactus Juice Designed to stabilise wood, Pretty expensive stuff though

[daltontrees]

I use thin CA glue, but it will depend on how much you want to stabilize and how much glue you will need. The CA glue really does the job though.......

 

It'd be interesting to see how that would go on big jobs. Any moisture at all causes cyanoacrylate to forma skin and harden, so I' wondering if nail varnish remover would act as a suitable thinner and allow deeper penetration before evaporating and letting atmospheric moisture cause the CA to harden. I have a sneaking suspicion that that's how the commercially available wood hardeners work. They are horrendously expensive and a rotted wood sill will drink a whole tin in no time, but it they could be mixed in bulk it would be well useful.

 

Or they might explode, try at your own peril folks and if you survive maybe let us know how it went.

 

I think CA mixed with sawdust can be used as a bulk void filler.

[Lazurus]

Cut it into turning blanks and flog it off as is..........

[mickdundee]

D&M wood hardener from tool post. But I don't know if it'll be financially viable for the amount of timber you need to treat

 

 

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[Chris Scott]

I do wood stabilizing with Cactus juice, but the biggest peice i could do would be about 6'' square and a foot long, As that's the limits of my vacuum chamber. The cost would also be quite high for that size piece depending just how soft it is and how much resin it absorbed. Potentially a peice this size could take up £40-50 of resin.

 

However, you can still get a good result without vacuum if you can get the peice that you want to stabilise completely dry - a couple of days in an oven at 110C and then soak it submerged in cactus juice for a week then back into the oven for a day to cure it. It won't be 100% stablized but it'll get most of the way there without vacuum if its spongy to start with.