THO Game Calls Forums
The Art of Handcrafting Custom Game Calls => Stabilizing Your Own Blanks => Topic started by: Greg at PTDO Game Calls on June 05, 2015, 08:05:01 PM
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I have a question for those of you that do a lot of stabilizing. I built a chamber the other night that will hold. However my pump will only pull 21" hg. Is that enough? It appears to be working. Just curious on your thoughts.
Thanks
Greg
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I have done some stabilizing, but I also work with vacuum at work. That wil not be enough vacuum to get full penetration. You really need to be at about 27 minimum.
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I agree with Dan 27 is about as good as it gets the key is the soak after the vacume
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Hi Greg - I do quite a bit of stabilizing for both call and pen making. You need to get as close as you can to "absolute vacuum", which is dependent on your altitude. For my altitude that's about 28.8.
You'll normally need a two stage vacuum pump to get to that point.
Unless you vacuum out as much air as possible, your blank won't be completely stabilized. You need to draw that deep vacuum then hold that until the bubbles stop coming out of the wood. Then after the bubbles have stopped you can remove the vacuum and allow the juice to get drawn in to the blank. Be sure and have enough juice in the chamber to keep the blanks well submerged, after I remove the vacuum I leave them sit overnight so they'll draw in as much juice as possible. Then I take them out, get off as much juice as possible, wrap them in tin foil and bake them @200F for an hour.
Happy Turning
Tom
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I have a question for those of you that do a lot of stabilizing. I built a chamber the other night that will hold. However my pump will only pull 21" hg. Is that enough? It appears to be working. Just curious on your thoughts.
Thanks
Greg
I pull only 23" with very satisfactory results. My pump will adjust to more but I have never felt it necessary. However, some wood stable better than others. Maple is perhaps my favorite. Coco, OO, Ironwoods, etc., I won't even attempt.