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Alcohol Question.

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I have had great success with the alcohol (methyl hydrate, denatured alcohol etc) method for drying rough turned bowls etc . All woods for me so far except orchard apple or cherry wood have turned out crack free and ready to final turn after two to four weeks of curing..
But I find that after using several gallons of the same alcohol in a five gallon pail for half a dozen times in a row it starts to darken to an orange color.
How many times do you usually re-use it before starting over with fresh clear alcohol.
I am presently turning some elm bowls and projects and I dont want to change the beautiful natural coloring too much so I have started over with some new denatured alcohol. But I havn't dumped the discolored batch yet just in case someone here may have a suggestion for re-using it.
W.Y.
 
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Household Hazardous Waste

that used material cannot be disposed other than at an approved waste facility. You will contaminate ground water if dumped on land. Help keep Canada clean.
If you need more info about re-using your toxic solvents please do a google on the above title.
 
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Ray Dewey:
I am well aware of disposal regulations of hazardous goods in my area without doing any google searches on the subject.
Although your reply was probably interesting to you and some others , it did not answer my question.

Hopefully some others will give some input on the original question.
W.Y.
 
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Extractives

Bill,

What you're getting is some of the wood extractives leaching into the alcohol. Topic has come up and Dave Smith, the "Alky-Dude", has had the same thing happen. Consensus seems to have been that you cannot filter out the color (impurities) without equipment that costs many times the price of fresh alcohol. You can still use the darkening product for darker woods and try to keep some separation between the light wood soak bucket and darker wood soaks.

Just a note on disposal, alcohol evaporates so quickly and burnes so cleanly that there's no reason to "dump" it on the ground. This was discussed when trying to figure out when to use fresh stuff (use an antifreeze tester) and what to do with the old stuff that's got a high water content.

Hope this helps.

Peace

Mark
 
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Excellent

Thanks a bunch mark for the excellent and informative response.
That is the kind of information I was after.
I will save the darker stuff for walnut and similar colored woods and I will take your advice on the antifreeze tester trick to check the water content in it. .
Great advice.
Much appreciated.

W.Y.
 
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William I dont Have any problems soaking all My wood, Dark or lite in color in the same Batch. I have soaked many Black walnut then Maple and it doesn't seem yo bother it at all. and I Have never desposed of any of my Alky Just keep adding fresh as needed when it gets low!
 
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Thanks Jim;
That puts a little different slant on it. It is so nice to hear varied responses on topics . I sure like the turning work that you and others do over on the Woodworkers forum. As you know I post and participate in messages there as well as here and in about the same proportion time wise. Wish I hade more time to spend in all the excellent sites but there are only so many hours in a day. Seems most sites have their regulars and I noticed you have a swell bunch of predominently regular members there just like there are here.
Thanks for your suggestion and perhaps I will try the best of both worlds with the alcohol and save the older darker pails of it for darker woods and keep some clear gallons for those special ones that I dont want to take a chance on them getting the least bit discolored.
Thanks to you it is good to know that I do not now have to discard the discolored batch.
W.Y.
 
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Ron Sardo

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I have a batch that I have used for awhile. I keep topping it off as needed. I've soaked everything from black walnut to holly in that batch.

I find the discoloration is only skin deep and will turn off with no problems.
 
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Ron Sardo said:
I find the discoloration is only skin deep and will turn off with no problems.

After my experience with LDD and muddy grain in cherry, I don't soak anything other than cherry in a segregated batch of alk. That way I don't have to worry about staining.

Haven't been turning walnut since starting with the alcohol, so the light color change hasn't been an issue for me either.

Mark
 
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Ron Sardo said:
I have a batch that I have used for awhile. I keep topping it off as needed. I've soaked everything from black walnut to holly in that batch.

I find the discoloration is only skin deep and will turn off with no problems.

Which is a fair indicator of how far alcohol really does soak in within the soaking times indicated by the method, and the loss of the solution itself a fair indicator of what else is happening, given that the centrifugal force of turning has ejected a lot of water, making space for adding alcohol.

So what, if anything is really going on?
 
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Hey, Will.

Long time no ping.

I'm actually with Dr. Dewey on his last comment. Pick up a specific gravity tester from a brewing store or hardware store and make sure to check your alcohol level (will an antifreeze tester work?). I'm pretty sure the whole process works by exchanging the bound water in cells with the alcohol until an equivalent partial pressure is reached. This would mean that the water content in the solution goes up each time you use it. Tag the high volitility of alcohol to that and you're gonna lose a signficant percentage of alcohol with each soak. Pretty quick, you'll be soaking in mostly water. Personally, that would be more signficant to me than the concerns of discoloration, as that would just add the kind of wierd character to wood that I like.

Good luck,
Dietrich
 
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MichaelMouse said:
So what, if anything is really going on?

Ethynol dessication [alcohol drying] of material has been, as I understand it, an long-accepted laboratory process. Dave Smith started the application for speeding the drying of turnings, and it has been gaining ground among turners. The alcohol acts to pull a large amount of free water from the wood and also apparently binds with the remaining "bound" water. The vented drying technique then allows the alcohol/water solution remaining in the wood to evaporate at a higher rate.

If you don't care about how long you have to hold rough-outs before final turning and finishing, the method and effect is irrelevant. If you work with very stabile woods which don't distort much during drying, the method, which does seem to reduce dimentional changes, is not something you need to consider.

If you want a more detailed explanation, contact Dave Smith, as he's the one doing the detailed research.

Mark
ps that was tuposed to be "dimensional"
 
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# of bowls

I've soaked about 125 bowls (everything from 4 inch to 18) and used around 7 gallon of the 12 I started with (soaked into the wood I guess). Since I've had walnut in it, its pretty darned dark. I'm going to wait till it gets down to 5gap then X-fer to a 5 gallon bucket and use it to dry spindle blanks and start over with a clean 12-15 gallon again. Even tho I'm almost down to 1/2, the remaining balance of Alcohol seems to be working well. What I'd like to find is a supplier of Alcohol in 5 gallon buckets (or heck, even a drum of it). But, can't find a supplier in Ohio..... It gets salty at 11 bucks a gallon.....
 

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devonpalmer said:
What I'd like to find is a supplier of Alcohol in 5 gallon buckets (or heck, even a drum of it). But, can't find a supplier in Ohio.....
I am guessing that purchasing a 55 gallon drum of denatured alcohol may get you a visit from the ATF also.
 
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Mark Mandell said:
Ethynol dessication [alcohol drying] of material has been, as I understand it, an long-accepted laboratory process. Dave Smith started the application for speeding the drying of turnings, and it has been gaining ground among turners. The alcohol acts to pull a large amount of free water from the wood and also apparently binds with the remaining "bound" water. The vented drying technique then allows the alcohol/water solution remaining in the wood to evaporate at a higher rate.

"

I took Histology once, and I remember how long we soaked our 3-5mm thick tissue samples in ethanol, and how we discarded alcohol soaks before we did a final in absolute, and considered the specimen dehydrated and ready for mount. Note, it wasn't dry, just dehydrated. Not much comparison there. A proper analogy for the dehydration process is to take a quart of white sand and a quart of black sand and dump it in a bucket, shake thoroughly to simulate the mixing of alcohol and water, then discard half. You now add another quart of black sand, mix, decant ... well, you get the picture. It's dehydration by dilution, which isn't happening with the wood.

Though it's been longer since I took P-Chem than Histology, I still remember that alcohol and water are miscible, and don't "bind" to each other. They're like the grains of sand. So that's not a factor, even if the soak were long enough and repeated often enough to get the mix in paragraph one. As I said, the skin-deep color shows how little wood is actually being affected, and that only by acquiring alcohol in capillary spaces which were spun dry before dunking.

As to drying, control of relative humidity by bagging, boxing, housing in shavings and so forth is certainly nothing new, so what's the gain? More rapid evaporation of water? If I recall Raoult's law correctly, it's actually the opposite, with the evolved vapor being richer in the component with the lower boiling point. That's the basis of differential distillation, the process by which alcohol is produced in the moonshine business.

Oh well, if it feels good, do it.
 

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I believe (no evidence to support it) that the alcohol becomes a vehicle for more free exchange of water resulting in faster drying wood. Some how it also (according to others experimentation) allows for less warpage.

As far as staining only penetrating the surface and to no discern able depth, is it possible that the water is only discolored and not the alcohol and therefor is not penetrating as deep?

Also, is a water molecule larger than the alcohol molecule?

(I love the theoretical scientific discussions!)
 
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The ethanol molecule is larger than a water molecule. Now here's one for you. If you add a pint of ethanol to a pint of water - the result will be less than a quart of liquid - cause by the smaller molecules sharing the same space as the larger ones. I actually remember this from 7th grade science class... What can I say - I couldn't sleep.

Bob

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Bill Boehme

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I have not tried alcohol drying yet and don't have any demonstrated way to remove the dark color from the alcohol, but there is a low tech, low cost approach that might possibly help remove some of the impurities from the alcohol. Years ago, vinters used Bentonite clay as a flocculant to remove tannins and impurities from wine at the end of the secondary fermentation cycle. Tannins are probably the main culprit in discoloring the alcohol and are normally very difficult to remove from the mixture. The contamination in the alcohol used for wood drying is somewhat similar in that it contains a lot of tannin and miscellaneous contaminants. The Bentonite clay serves to attract these impurtities and precipitate them out to a layer on the bottom of the container after which the clear liquid can be siphoned off. I believe that purified Bentonite clay powder is still available at wine supply businesses that cater to home wine makers. There are also some newer high-tech flocculants that may be even better in filtering the alcohol.

Bill
 
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I haven't got time for this but here goes. Alcohol and water are miscible which means they will achieve a uniform concentration and not separate. If this were not the case then you would have to shake your beer bottle to get the alcohol to mix with the water. Alcohol will replace water in a porous material to achieve a balanced concentration with the soaking solution. Alcohol has been use for a long time to remove water from tissue samples and archaeological items. In these situations the item is placed in a pure solution of alcohol. When the solution stops changing concentration the item is placed in a new bath of dry alcohol and monitored for stabilization. Successive baths are used to achieve near complete water removal.

Alcohol readily moves through cell walls therefore it replaces cellular water which speeds the drying of wood. Alcohol and water molecules are much smaller than the contaminants which darken the soaking solution. As most woodworker know dyes and stains do not penetrate very far below the wood surface. The same is true when wood is soaked in a dark colored alcohol solution.

In conclusion, alcohol replaces the water in wood. There is little evidence of wood being stained beyond the surfaces from discolored solution. A combination of water displacement and thinner pieces results in faster drying and less distortion. It only takes a few less lost pieces to justify the cost of the alcohol.

I only recommend denatured ethanol. Look up the MSDS(material safety data sheet) for methanol, ethanol, and isopropyl. You will find there is a vast difference in the toxicity. Ethanol is made unfit for consumption by adding only 4% methanol by volume. Methanol may be cheap but you get what you pay for.

Dave Smith

I need to get back to the lathe in Longview, WA.
 
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Dave;
Thanks for that. Some like to doubt you on your theory but you and I both know that is OK if they are so inclined .
The bottom line for me is that it works and it works extremely well. It works better than any method I have ever used so I for one ( and hundreds or probably thousands more ) do not need volumes of scientific data to prove the validity of your excellent information on the subject. But I guess that might be nice for some that prefer that sort of thing. .

I will however switch from methyl hydrate to denatured alcohol after reading your message above this one. I have used denatured alcohol for my last few soakings I have done. . I really never had a problem yet with the methyl hydrate but best to be safe than sorry.
Thanks for your info. You have helped many with your time and effort that you have put into this .
W.Y.
 
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Thanks, Dave.

I was actually thinking of starting a thread to explore the actual biomechanics of alcohol dessication in wood. Turns out, you beat me to the start.

That same ability to pass through cell walls is probably why it decreases distortion and cracking, as I'm pretty sure that wood cell walls have an affinity for water; they will litterally pull water in by use of a semipermiable and unidirectional membrane, until the partial pressure inside the cell is higher than outside. This is why water swells wood. It only stands to reason that such a specifically built cell wall, designed to maintain turgor pressure in the cells (and requiring stoma to allow excess pressure out), would have no such affinity for alcohol, allowing an alcohol bath to push out excess water until a consistant concentration is reached across the solution. Once removed, the alcohol can leave the cells easilly to evaporate, leaving behind a reduced amount of water and a now flacid cell.

Any biochemists out there to check me out on this theory?

Dietrich
 
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Dave Smith said:
Alcohol readily moves through cell walls therefore it replaces cellular water which speeds the drying of wood. Alcohol and water molecules are much smaller than the contaminants which darken the soaking solution. As most woodworker know dyes and stains do not penetrate very far below the wood surface. The same is true when wood is soaked in a dark colored alcohol solution.

In conclusion, alcohol replaces the water in wood.

The cellulose/hemicellulose walls left behind after the death of the cells require no penetration help at all, constructed as they are for the transport of water. Alcohol, having lower surface tension than water actually moves slower than pure water through a vessel structure designed for capillary draw of water.

Solutes go everywhere the solvent goes, so particle size is a red herring, especially given the relative size of extractives and pores in the wood. Anyone who's ever turned a white flower red in the third grade by putting food dye in the water has seen this.

In conclusion, alcohol dilutes the water in the wood, since it in no way displaces or replaces anything, merely mixes with it.
 
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dkulze said:
Thanks, Dave.


That same ability to pass through cell walls is probably why it decreases distortion and cracking, as I'm pretty sure that wood cell walls have an affinity for water; they will litterally pull water in by use of a semipermiable and unidirectional membrane, until the partial pressure inside the cell is higher than outside. This is why water swells wood. It only stands to reason that such a specifically built cell wall, designed to maintain turgor pressure in the cells (and requiring stoma to allow excess pressure out), would have no such affinity for alcohol, allowing an alcohol bath to push out excess water until a consistant concentration is reached across the solution. Once removed, the alcohol can leave the cells easilly to evaporate, leaving behind a reduced amount of water and a now flacid cell.

Any biochemists out there to check me out on this theory?

Dietrich

First - no magic of osmosis. Wood is dead, as in no cytoplasm. All the rest which you have constructed, therefore is impossible.

If you or anyone else is interested in what wood is, and how it dries, might I suggest. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.htm

It's our medium, guess we might as well learn something about it.
 
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MichaelMouse said:
Solutes go everywhere the solvent goes, so particle size is a red herring, especially given the relative size of extractives and pores in the wood.
Sorry, I just have to jump in here. Solutes don't go everywhere the solvent goes.

Semi-permeable membranes, whether alive, dead or man-made abound in the world. Desalination plants use semi-permeable membranes to extract "pure" water from salt water.

Then there are materials that will remove or retard the movement of solutes. The home water softener is a good example of removal (by ion exchange). And there is a host of chemical analytical techniques based on the slower motion of solutes through adsorption on special materials (i.e. liquid chromatography).
 
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MichaelMouse said:
First - no magic of osmosis. Wood is dead, as in no cytoplasm. All the rest which you have constructed, therefore is impossible.


Mike, it works, give it a shot.
 
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Brian Hahn said:
Sorry, I just have to jump in here. Solutes don't go everywhere the solvent goes.

Semi-permeable membranes, whether alive, dead or man-made abound in the world. Desalination plants use semi-permeable membranes to extract "pure" water from salt water.

Then there are materials that will remove or retard the movement of solutes. The home water softener is a good example of removal (by ion exchange). And there is a host of chemical analytical techniques based on the slower motion of solutes through adsorption on special materials (i.e. liquid chromatography).

I see you posses some knowledge, but it would be nice if it pertained to the discussion at hand. How big does a hole have to be before it's no longer a membrane, but a seive? Please, read the information on wood structure and drying before typing.


There are birds in the air, too, but I don't think their eyes really get into wood.
 
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From a purely practical point of view, I think there's only one way to resolve this issue...someone should do a controlled study. It doesn't have to involve scientific instruments and clean lab conditions...simply turn a number of bowls blanks from various woods and turn them in pairs in roughly identical sizes and shapes. Soak one of each pair in alcohol, don't soak the other. Compare results.

Now I believe Dave Smith has done or is doing something along these lines. Some are convinced by his results, some are still sceptical. Those who haven't tried it at all, yet find fault, risk losing credibility themselves if not assuming the mantle of "contrarian."

Myself...I've not been turning all that long. But I've been using alcohol since I began. I've had some luck with it and some failure (and not always with fruit woods or other problematic woods). That said, I don't follow Dave's procedure point for point. So my experiences may be questioned. But one thing I have noticed--weeks after soaking I can often still smell alcohol coming off a piece even after it has been in the open for an hour or two (I generally pop my soaked blanks in a brown paper bag). If the penetration is only skin deep, you would not expect this to happen.

Something...never mind the verbiage...is happening here that is obviously not well understood. And dismissing it out of hand seems illogical at best.


DW
In the High Desert of Central Oregon
 
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I recently used DNA (DeNatured Alcohol) to treat some mesquite roughouts. The main objective there was to nuke the remaining grubs in the sapwood area.

It worked on most of the roughouts. Some of the roughouts still have little "ticking" noises in them. I suspect that the easiest grub kills occurred when the grub hole reached the surface of the turned roughout - allowing the easiest penetration of alcohol. Most of the grub holes have sawdust plugs - which can be very hard. I'm not sure if the DNA penetrated through all of those plugs.

If only we humans were as hardy as these grubs seem to be....life would be a lot easier!
 
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Jeff Jilg said:
I recently used DNA (DeNatured Alcohol) to treat some mesquite roughouts. The main objective there was to nuke the remaining grubs in the sapwood area.

It worked on most of the roughouts. Some of the roughouts still have little "ticking" noises in them. I suspect that the easiest grub kills occurred when the grub hole reached the surface of the turned roughout - allowing the easiest penetration of alcohol. Most of the grub holes have sawdust plugs - which can be very hard. I'm not sure if the DNA penetrated through all of those plugs.

If only we humans were as hardy as these grubs seem to be....life would be a lot easier!

Jeff, how long did you soak the blanks? You can soak them several days with no harm to the finished pieces. How thick were they? All the mesquite I have soaked had nothing but pickled grubs when I finish turned them.

Ants don't like the alcohol very much either. I have soaked whole pieces before rough turning to dispatch the critters.

Dave Smith

A dead grub is a good grub in Longview, WA
 
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alchol

WOW! Im gonna go drink some alchol and soak my spinning head with a wet(water) towel and try to figure all this out. Seriously Im gonna try this alchol thing on some small wet blanks,thanks all
Jim :p
 
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Hi Dave,

I soaked one set of blanks 24 hours. And I soaked another group 48 hours.

However I did not record which group was which. And as we know, some of the DNA was getting diluted with water from the roughouts in the later batch of soakings.

One thing is certain. I did not soak 2 roughouts and they have the distinctive "ticking" noise of grubs hard at work (destroying the pieces). In the 2 platters I roughed out, there are no grubs, and those were soaked for ~36 hours in fresh DNA for each platter.

...a pickled grub makes a nice appetizer in central Texas
 
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MichaelMouse said:
I see you posses some knowledge, but it would be nice if it pertained to the discussion at hand. How big does a hole have to be before it's no longer a membrane, but a seive? Please, read the information on wood structure and drying before typing.

My, don't you think that is a bit condescending?.

And by the by, osmosis is a passive process. Doesn't require living cells or cytoplasm- just solvent(s), solute(s), and a semi-permeable membrane.

Also, solutes absolutely penetrate at different speeds when diffusing through semi-solid media- try reading about eastern/western blots and the physics behind these methodolgies- therefore, the depth of discoloration in a soaked piece will differ depending on how long it has been soaked- but may never match the depth of the solvent's penetration- as you said, depending on the size of the pores and the size of the pigments.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and to post them if they are of interest to the group as a whole- whether or not they as well-read as you would have them be. Science is all about not believing everything that you read. I find most of your posts interesting and insightful- but when someone disagrees with you, keep it civil. I have more years of higher education behind me than I'd like to think, but I am very aware that there are always going to be people who know more about any given subject than I. Just something to think about.
 
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I love the smell of napalm in the morning

Jeff Jilg said:
I recently used DNA (DeNatured Alcohol) to treat some mesquite roughouts. The main objective there was to nuke the remaining grubs in the sapwood area..........
It just happens that I bought a gallon of alcohol yesterday (at the hardware store not the liquor store) for an entirely different purpose than soaking wood. But, I do have some mesquite that is exuding the telltale ring of dust on the ends so I think that I will see if I can get these guys drunk. I was also considering sticking the whole blank in the microwave for a bit just to evaporate some of the alcohol and perhaps drive it deeper into the wood. DNA may be a good marinade for cooked-in-the-wood grubs.
Jeff Jilg said:
...a pickled grub makes a nice appetizer in central Texas
As Jeff said, we have some nice grubs here in Texas. I am sure that the marinated and steamed ones are good too.

Bill Boehme:D
 
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I can't believe how many idiots there are on this post. I know what I'm talking about and I know I'm completely right...... ROASTED is the only way to do grubs, dangit!

Geeze, steamed? Pickled? Boiled, for god's sake? Don't you know anything?
Bunch a frikkin losers.


Dietrich :D
 
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dkulze said:
I can't believe how many idiots there are on this post. I know what I'm talking about and I know I'm completely right...... ROASTED is the only way to do grubs, dangit!

Geeze, steamed? Pickled? Boiled, for god's sake? Don't you know anything?
Bunch a frikkin losers.


Dietrich :D

You forgot smoked. We like to smoke fish with green alder. I would think the grubs would be like escargot without the shell. We grow really big shell-less snails here on the wet side of the mountains. A leopard slug is big enough to feed a family of four.

Dave Smith

I think I just digressed in Longview, WA.
 
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Definitely steamed! But you've got to be careful not to over-cook them.

A long while ago (maybe 15 years) I was nuking a bunch of spalted and grub infested sweet gum. Got a little over-zealous and nuked one a little too long. Smoke suddenly started squirting out of it. Smoke in the microwave, in the kitchen, in the house... It wasn't even all that hot on the outside -- no blisters as I dashed for the door with it!
 
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DWFII said:
From a purely practical point of view, I think there's only one way to resolve this issue...someone should do a controlled study. It doesn't have to involve scientific instruments and clean lab conditions...simply turn a number of bowls blanks from various woods and turn them in pairs in roughly identical sizes and shapes. Soak one of each pair in alcohol, don't soak the other. Compare results.

I have done just this. Soaks in tagged (dyed) alcohol reveal the minimum penetration reported by others. Dry times of soaked - tagged or untagged - pieces have shown no benefit to the soak. The tests were conducted on cubes cut from the same length of wood, and distortion was as predicted by the percentages listed for the wood under test for the dimension and grain direction on both soaked and unsoaked pieces.

Cubes were chosen because they are controlled shapes, something unobtainable with turnings, and allow easy measurement.

I invite you to do the same, in full confidence of similar results. I have seen only subjective opinions from proponents or soaking. Since the presumptions of the action of alcohol are demonstrably incorrect - as no replacement, displacement or bonding (as in dehydration with H2SO4) is possible with what is as close to an ideal mixture of liquids as can be found, we must conclude that dehydration by dilution is the only possibility. It is, after all, a technique used in other disciplines. It is also done with long soaks and continued replacement of the alcohol to remove unbound water. While withholding my opinion on the virtues of Aggies, the following might be of interest : http://nautarch.tamu.edu/class/anth605/File6.htm

This is not the method used for turnings, and, as indicated, it requires the pieces be dried after dehydration because the bound water - loss of which causes shrinkage - must still be removed.

The kind folks at Madison have done a lot of work determining just how and where wood holds water, and the means by which the loss of water produces shrinkage, all we have to do is relate this to the evidence of the ruler.


My Recommendations:

Cutting blanks thinner than the "10% rule," while not allowing for much design modification after drying, allows for more rapid loss of water. Since all shrinkage, as with politics, is local, it is continuous sections which determine the total dimensional change. The diagrams in the FPL documents are an accurate predictor of direction, with the shrinkage tables an accurate source for the percentage. Use this information if you want to minimize drying time.

Relative humidity determines the amount of moisture within a sample, and control of relative humidity is the means to minimize drying degrade. Tenting, which creates a layer of still air of higher relative humidity around a damp piece is a good way to control moisture loss so that the surface will be held at the FSP until the interior has given up its moisture. Paper, which adsorbs water as its parent - wood - does, is perhaps the best choice, as it also re-releases the moisture to the outside atmosphere as plastic cannot. Other means of contolling RH, including doing nothing, in a humid area, work as well.

Finally, the 1" per year "rule" so often repeated, should be scrapped as it relates to turnings, and is predominantly bunk even when referring to planks. End grain loses moisture at 10-15 times the rate of face grain, and cross-grain turnings seldom have any point more than an inch or so away from the end-grain/atmospheric interface, so a turning will dry at a rate much higher than the "rule," which also includes a winter outdoors. Look at the end of any log in your firewood stack to find out just how fast it can dry.

Is alcohol going to dry your wood? Nope. Air has, does, and will.

I don't expect this to gain acceptance the way a new magic formula, tool or grind will. It's certainly not as exciting as attempting to pile on contempt when I ask that those who reference osmosis read and discover that you can drive the molecular equivalent of a 747 through the pores of a wood like maple, much less walnut. Or where someone reads a resume as a purported rebuttal to my assertion that mechanical advantage is greater with minimum tool extension over the rest, and no one who has longer handles on their "bowl" gouges or thicker sections on their scrapers to counter just this, or ever felt the increased pressure on their hand as extension over the rest increased, said a word. It's just not what a lot of folks want to hear, regardless.
 
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