Turning Punky Wood

Doug,
You'll find a very comprehensive article at http://www.woodrestoration.com/  although it concerns a particular product brand  with which that I have no experience.  I have used Total Boat penetrating epoxy that can be additionally thinned.  Check with Jamestown Distributors.com for specifics.

Have I turned rotted wood? You bet.  Hows this



for punk.

What did I use?  NC lacquer thinned and applied on the lathe with final (many-many-many) coats in black spray lacquer. I got this:



Jar was turned on a waste block to about 1/4" with honed tools [gouge and skew].  The lacquer actually penetrated through the walls so the piece wound up as a lacquer/wood composite.  Aside from the wood and lacquer, the primary ingredient was . .  Much Time.

Good Luck

I've used PolyAll 2000 (from Canada, I think), I've used Minwax Wood Harderner, and I've used Cactus Juice (which is quite a process).  The PolyAll was more like a filler that hardened the wood.   When turning, it smelled bad and behaved more like plastic. The Minwax stiffened the fibers, but did not really fill the micro-voids in the punky wood.  Not much of a filler.  Cactus Juice definitely filled in the chunk to stabilize the whole thing.  I liked it best, but you need a vacuum pump, a vacuum chamber and an oven to cook the wood.  Plus, Cactus Juice is not cheap.

You can get wood stabilized if you don't want to mess around with all the hardware to do it yourself.  K & G Finishing in AZ is where I had some done a few years ago.

Joe Fleming wrote:

I've used PolyAll 2000 (from Canada, I think), I've used Minwax Wood Harderner, and I've used Cactus Juice (which is quite a process).  The PolyAll was more like a filler that hardened the wood.   When turning, it smelled bad and behaved more like plastic. The Minwax stiffened the fibers, but did not really fill the micro-voids in the punky wood.  Not much of a filler.  Cactus Juice definitely filled in the chunk to stabilize the whole thing.  I liked it best, but you need a vacuum pump, a vacuum chamber and an oven to cook the wood.  Plus, Cactus Juice is not cheap.

Hey Joe,

PolyAll  was a great product, I used it with a lot of success.  It was designed to restore damaged and rotted wood in classic cars.  However, it is no longer manufactured.

Ric

I tried PolyAll (the Canadian stuff) but found it unworkable as it set up way too fast for my use.

Ric,

Good to know on PolyAll.  When I was in Colorado for the symposium, Cindy Drozda gave me an unused kit.  I used up a kit years ago, so now I'm ready for more stuff.

Joe