Turner's Choice Wood Stabilizer questions

[Rand Hall]

I would appreciate any feedback from Turner's Choice Wood Stabilizer users (also called Cedar Shield). Specifically I am after:
1. How long should green wood 1st turned bowl blanks be soaked?
2. How long does it take a soaked bowl to dry before final turning?
3. Does the product cause any discoloration of the wood?
4. Any problems with shellac, oil, or wax finishes after treating with Turner's Choice?
5. The product claims to be non-toxic, environment safe. Does this include the dust created during the turning process (other that the possible allergens from the wood dust itself)?

Thanks in advance for any info you can send my way. Rand, member Redwood Coast Woodturners, AAW

 

[Bill Boehme]

All dust is harmful, especially the very fine dust that winds up in the lungs.

I've never heard of the product that you mentioned.

 

[john lucas]

I've heard of it I just don't see the need. I have rough outs all over the shop so when I need something I just grab a dry one. I never felt like I needed to force dry anything just let nature do it for me. Of course I'm not a production turner. I do have friends who use Kiln's to speed up the drying. I'm sure that's less expensive, fairly fast, and environmentally safe. I do know a lot of people seem pretty happy with Alcohol drying which has proven to be safe and relatively inexpensive. Sorry I can't answer your question about the stuff but once I looked at the price many years ago I decided it wasn't worth the effort.

 

[odie]

I haven't used it either.....but, have some questions.

If I'm understanding correctly, this "Turners Choice wood stabilizer" solution displaces moisture content, and then allows the host wood to dry quicker?

Wouldn't the stresses and warping incurred during the process of moisture stabilization be the same, just a shorter time element to reach it?

To my thinking, it's unevenly distributed warping that causes cracking, and this wouldn't resolve that issue, but would increase the speed of the warp......right? If this is true, then wouldn't the causes of cracking be increased?

It seems to me that the speed at which the water/moisture content is removed IS the cause of those stresses that cause cracking.

Warping isn't the problem.....it can be dealt with.......it's the cracking that is the issue which destroys possible bowl blanks. The speed at which the MC is removed IS the problem, and that's why we ultimately attempt to slow down the rate of moisture release.

Maybe this TC wood stabilizer would be better used for wood that is already partially seasoned, and at a point where much of the stress factor has already happened......?

ko

edit: I tend to agree with John......we have a method that works pretty well for achieving moisture stabilization, although it does take time. One could always use kiln dried wood to turn while letting nature take it's course on the others.......

.

 

[hockenbery]

This product seems to offer the same wood stabilization as PEG.

When wood is soaked in PEG, chemicals replace the bound water inside the cell.
The cells can no longer change its moisture content and the wood's movement is stabilised.

Many turners have used PEG with success and there is a lot written about it.
With peg bowls roughed at 3/8" can be finished at 1/8"
Roughed at a 1/2" can be finished at 1/4"
Hollow forms treated with peg warp much less than those untreated.

Few turners use PEG or other stabilizers because the negatives outweigh the positives.

Positive - PEG will lock the wood into its treated shape
- treated woot turns well

Negatives - expense, time to treat, mess, incompatible with many finishes.

Here is a good reference on PEG
http://owic.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/pubs/peg.pdf

-al

 

[Bill Boehme]

Odie makes some very good points. There is another stabilizer that I am familiar with -- PEG-1000 (polyethylene glycol with an equivalent molecular weight of 1000). It can only be used on freshly cut green wood. The green wood rough out bowl is soaked in a vat of PEG-1000 for a few days. Saying that it displaces water is a gross misstatement (same thing goes for ethyl alcohol soaking) -- it actually blends with the free water in the wood. After the bowl is removed from the solution, it dries just like usual ... and not one bit faster. I suspect that the same thing is true about the product you mentioned, TCWS.

People often equated wood stabilization with wood drying, but they are completely different things. While I am not familiar with TCWS, most green wood stabilizers have similar characteristics. A wood stabilizer like PEG-1000 does reduce the amount of warping while a bowl dries, but what's the point? Sure, you can make the rough-out thinner because the warping will be less -- big deal. Besides spending a lot of money for nothing, PEG-1000 has a lot of serious issues such as darkening the wood, making it look dull and drab, and making it unsuitable for most types of finishing. There is another product that I have used for stabilizing green wood: Pentacryl. It might possibly be similar to TCWS. It is even worse than PEG ... it is the equivalent of soaking the wood in used motor oil ... actually the used motor oil might be a bit better and it would be free.

Like most turners, I have a large stash of found wood -- some green and some dry. Sometimes I rough out the green wood and then wait three months or so before I finish turning it. Nothing beats letting Mother Nature dry the wood.

 

[John Torchick]

Bill, thanks for the testimonial on Pentacryl. I was looking at it at the local Woodcraft store and wondered how it would work. Will place wood in a dry place as others have suggested and let it dry naturally.

 

[Rand Hall]

Thank you for your input

Thanks to all that have joined in. I started this quest because a friend of mine turned a bowl that later had an emergence of powder post beetle. He did some research, found Turner's Choice, which claims to be non-toxic, environment safe, yet will kill any insect infestation and prevent any future insect attack.
I get a fair amount of donated wood, often with some rot and/or insect damage, so I would love for this product to be all it claims to be.
I have just begun experimenting with it, have soaked a few pen blanks and 8 bowl blanks. They are drying now. My best estimate of cost is approximately $1.60 of TC per pound of wood (weight of wood before soaking) that soaks into the wood.
Once the pieces are dry (no longer any weight loss) I will get to find out how they turn, look, and finish. If anyone out there has any experience to this end I would appreciate a reply.
Cheers, Rand (Redwood Coast Woodturners), AAW

 

[Shawn Pachlhofer]

someone in my club uses it a lot. I know him to either rough a bowl and coat it with CedarCide (competition's product name) or turn to finished thickness and coat with CedarCide.

The last one I saw was a an apple wood bowl, about 9" dia x 7" height. He rough turned, coated with CedarCide - I saw the bowl that night, then again about 10 days later and it had not noticeably warped and had not cracked.

 

[john lucas]

If you have a bug problem simply place the wood in a plastic bag with moth balls. It will kill them. A friend called with a finished piece that had bugs. He didn't want to mess up the finish with any of the other methods such as heating or spraying with bug killer. The moth balls worked perfectly.

 

[odie]

someone in my club uses it a lot. I know him to either rough a bowl and coat it with CedarCide (competition's product name) or turn to finished thickness and coat with CedarCide.

The last one I saw was a an apple wood bowl, about 9" dia x 7" height. He rough turned, coated with CedarCide - I saw the bowl that night, then again about 10 days later and it had not noticeably warped and had not cracked.

Shawn......We should probably think in terms of percentages, here.....instead of a single example that appears to be successful. For sure, I'm hypothesizing, and I've made no scientific studies to base any conclusions on real evidence......but, my bet is that the percentages of successful seasoned bowls would favor longer periods of time, over chemical water displacement and short term seasoning. I base my thinking on the belief that the long term time element will lead to less cracking overall, than warping over a short term. The stress would have time to equalize with small increments of warp over time, than large increments over short periods of time.......

But, I could be completely wrong.......

ko

 

[John Tisdale]

Several years ago I tossed about 60-gallons of Pentacryl and will not use another "stabilizing" product.

I do large hollow-forms which may or may not be more difficult to dry than open bowls. I always do the "rough" with green logs - wall thickness on the largest diameter will be around 1.25". I then boil for about 2-hours (see Steven Russell's website & white-paper on boiling). Next is to put them in a closed box (with computer fan evacuating the interior) and take the MC from over 50% to a bit under 20% - I do this in a slightly heated room with a dehumidifier. The 50% to 20% transition takes a few months - according to Gene Wengert, this is where the losses occur if pushed too fast.
When at 20% or less, you can be more aggressive - I take my pieces out of the box - they continue to dry with the computer fan running 24/7.

The boiling relieves a lot of the stress and allows much faster drying without cracks - the only species I don't boil is mesquite. Conventional wisdom says it takes one year per inch to air dry. Boiling and the dehumidifier cuts the time to a few months. And with hollow-forms, a little fan to keep the interior and exterior the same is a must.

From the time the log is boiled to 6%MC takes around six-months, more of less depending on species. While the 6% rough is warped bigtime, I leave enough thickness to true both exterior and interior, fine-tune the profile, and then finish.

Instead of wasting money on stabilizer chemicals just keep lots of pieces at various stages and don't get in a hurry.

 

[hockenbery]

John makes some good suggestions. His work is a bit larger than what I do.

I turn hollow forms and natural edge bowls in one lathe session.
With curves and even wall thickness of 1/8 -3/16 these dry in a few days and don't crack. They do warp in pleasing ways.

Some larger bowls I leave 1/2" thick to add to their functionality. These take a week to 10 days to dry.

My process for larger pieces( 12" me bowl, 12-14" diameter HF) is to wash them. Get the end grain section really wet. Towel dry and put it in a cardboard box on a block of wood to keep it off the bottom of the box. I close the flaps on the box. On day 2 I open one flap,on the box. On day 3 I open all the flaps day 4 it goes on the shelf to dry fora day. On day five it is ready to finish. If it is a 16-17" natural edge crotch bowl 1/2" thick I will leave the box closed for 2 days then out the bowl into paper bags for a week.
I have lots of nice finished pieces within weeks without waiting 6 months for a piece to dry. I can also put pieces into the double turn pipeline to finish in 6-8 months.

Al

 

[Mark Mandell]

No Soap

Years ago, I bought into the routine of soaking roughed bowls in dish detergent to stabilize the wood and prevent cracking. Costco's Kirkland brand was recommended as the best and cheapest option. Had a 30 gal. garbage can of the stuff and into the goop the wet turnings would go. What I didn't know (nobody told me) was the net effect of the extractives present of the wet wood. As the detergent penetrated the wood it leached out the proteins and other organic compounds that were present in the wood. These compounds then reacted with the detergents and surfactants in the solution and formed long-chain molecules. The result? The bowls didn't crack (mostly) when drying, but 25 gallons of dish soap slowly thickened and then congealed into a 65 lb. mass of greenish, semi gelatinous stuff that had an odd similarity to a 50's horror film.

Made quite an impression when I carted the whole thing to the county toxic waste clean-up day. General worker looked at it in the back of my truck and bolted for the supervisor. They both returned with full respirators on. I then had to explain what I "thought" this s*** was and how I got it. Supervisor had a good laugh as he told the crew to unload it.

They gave me back my empty can in about 5 minutes, and I've always had the suspicion that the whole blob went straight into the nearest sewer.

 

[plamb]

Turners Choice

I have used Turners Choice, manufactured by Cedarcide in TX, for over 5 years and love it. No cracks and very little warp age. I soak a rough turned piece for 24-48 hours and as recommended. Let dry for 5 days or more. Finish turn and apply finish. No adverse effect from TC and it does not effect the color of the wood. From a fresh cut log to finished piece in less than 2 weeks.

 

[AlanZ]

Although I rarely turn bowls, my experience with Turner's Choice is similar to Peter's.
When I start with exotic woods, usually sold as waxed blanks, I find the product to work very well for roughed out bowls, following the manufacturer's suggestions.

I am just beginning to use it on some spindle work that's starting from wet waxed blanks, and I am hoping that this will pseudo-stabilize the wood and reduce or eliminate end grain splitting. I also use fully resin stabilized wood, as my application is a wet environment. I will have the spindle results in a few days.

 

[Raul McCai]

1. How long should green wood 1st turned bowl blanks be soaked?

Don't the instructions say 24 hours?

2. How long does it take a soaked bowl to dry before final turning?

Hmmm I suspect you need either a moisture meter or a lot of patience. Wood is an agri product, plus you haven't specified thickness, species or anything really. Oak, for example, seems to take for-bleedin-stinkin-EVER to air dry whereas Siberian Elm dries out nicely in almost no time.
Time to consider seasoned for all dried out cabinet work? One inch per year is what you find on the web and that's about as uninformative as a data point can be without actually being harmful. Add a product that's supposed to accelerate moisture transpiration and you have a compound unknown.

4. Any problems with shellac, oil, or wax finishes after treating with Turner's Choice?

It's got SILICONE in it, so finishing may very well be limited to wax and oils. What do the instructions say?
http://www.cedarcide.com/product/turners-choice-wood-stabilizer/

5. The product claims to be non-toxic, environment safe. Does this include the dust created during the turning process (other that the possible allergens from the wood dust itself)?

Wood dust has silica in it. Among Mass Tort Lawyers there is an expression: "Silica; the NEXT Asbestos~!!" YaY~!!!
Silica does cumulative lung damage over time. So your dust will have silica plus whatever else you have on or in your wood.

If you are golden with ingesting silicone, then I guess you are good. I'm not. It's got electrical properties and the stuff wants to spread out to a single molecule of thickness. Put a drop of silicone oil on a large surface like a concrete pad and eventually it'll be one molecule thick across a great huge area. That sort 'a wigs me out.

 

[MarkAndrews]

I just attended a demonstration at my local woodturning club that included the use of Cedarcide. The demonstrator was turning a winged bowl from a dry log. He had soaked the log in Cedarcide for 24 hours prior to the demo. I believe the idea was to make the piece turn as if it were green wood (it definitely did, ribbons were streaming of the gouge) without the attendant cracking and warping that would have occurred if he had indeed turned a green log. I will check with him at the next meeting to see if that was achieved.
On a separate note, I'm a newbie to turning and I recently attended a semester long wood turning class at Cerritos College. The instructor there used a technique that I have not seen mentioned anywhere else. His technique was to cut the blank out on the bandsaw, wrap the blank in a plastic bag like you get at the grocery store. Place it in the freezer for 24 hours and then in the refrigerator for 7 days. The idea was that the freezing would cause micro cellular ruptures in the wood fibers basically freeing the water and then the refrigerator was a very dry environment that would encourage evaporation of the moisture. I did this several times over the course of the class and it seemed to work perfectly every time. I never had a bowl warp or crack. I took it for granted that this was how you could dry a blank out in a week. Has anyone else used this technique?
Mark

 

[Hu Lowery]

good laugh!

Years ago, I bought into the routine of soaking roughed bowls in dish detergent to stabilize the wood and prevent cracking. Costco's Kirkland brand was recommended as the best and cheapest option. Had a 30 gal. garbage can of the stuff and into the goop the wet turnings would go. What I didn't know (nobody told me) was the net effect of the extractives present of the wet wood. As the detergent penetrated the wood it leached out the proteins and other organic compounds that were present in the wood. These compounds then reacted with the detergents and surfactants in the solution and formed long-chain molecules. The result? The bowls didn't crack (mostly) when drying, but 25 gallons of dish soap slowly thickened and then congealed into a 65 lb. mass of greenish, semi gelatinous stuff that had an odd similarity to a 50's horror film.

Made quite an impression when I carted the whole thing to the county toxic waste clean-up day. General worker looked at it in the back of my truck and bolted for the supervisor. They both returned with full respirators on. I then had to explain what I "thought" this s*** was and how I got it. Supervisor had a good laugh as he told the crew to unload it.

They gave me back my empty can in about 5 minutes, and I've always had the suspicion that the whole blob went straight into the nearest sewer.

I had a good laugh especially since I just watched what I believe was Steve McQueen's first movie a few nights ago.

Hu