Has anyone used Pentacyrl for stabilizing green wood before using it for turning or using log discs for a project? What did you think of it?
manufacturer website
http://www.preservation-solutions.com/product.php?product_id=1003&category_id=1000
one of many other sources
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?Offerings_ID=2466&TabSelect=Details
Not me, Don. My cousin had a green pterodactyl when he was a kid-- he was crazy about it. In fact he was kinda crazy. :-?
::)
(https://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q75/djmillerbucket/Emoticons/hmm.gif)
;D
gggrrroooaaannn ::)
... and you gotta live with that! (https://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q75/djmillerbucket/Emoticons/scarysmiley.gif)
::) :D Ya gotta luv him... :-*
He can't help himself... :-/ ;D
[highlight]He can't help himself... undecided Grin[/highlight]
Thank the Lord for special women Glenn ! ;)
I just got back from Colonial Williamsburg where I took my wife for dinner. It's our anniversary.
Quotewhere I took my wife for dinner. It's our anniversary.
Congratulations, Peter and Mrs. Nap
Congratulations! :)
Congrats, Peter. Colonial Williamsburg sounds cool - I like history- now that I'm not in school. :)
Special women, Peter -- yup -- you're right.. I do give her a hard time once in a while. :)
Secretly she probably enjoys it. ::)
Don -- looks like no one else has a green pterodactyl yet. :-/
Years and years ago I used a product named after our PEG. :-? It was PEG1000. ;D
It came as a block of PolyEthylene Glycol and it melted fairly easy. You soaked the wood in it and then worked it. It worked pretty good but I had trouble getting a finish to stick and look good. This Pentacryl is newer and a liquid and is supposed to be good stuff, easy to finish. Maybe I'll just get a quart and see how it works.
Sounds interesting. Mike Oehler said not to use Penta in the underground cabin as penta was found in the bloodstream of anyone who had been near it, however maybe this stuff is different - is outside, and only shares part of a similar name.
My Pentacryl arrived today, just in time to wait a few days.
Reports to follow.
Here goes nothing...
I've taken a slab from the same log that appeared under "Watching Wood Dry" (http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=3566.0"Watching%20Wood%20Dry") and am going to make a clock, if I can get it to dry satisfactorily.
It may seem strange but we begin this process by making sure the wood is nice and wet. hmm The fresh cut slab has been stored with damp clothes against the faces and then covered in Saran Wrap. After unwrapping I rinsed the surfaces and brushed on a few coats of Pentacryl as per instructions.
(https://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q75/djmillerbucket/clock%20making/IMG_2906pentacryl01.jpg)
hen I had the brilliant idea of using one of these large plastic bags I saved from something. I inserted the slab, poured several ounces of Pentacyrl on the slab, then turned it over and repeated. I folded the open ends closed as best as I could and clamped the folded material.
(https://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q75/djmillerbucket/clock%20making/IMG_2907pentacryl02.jpg)
I'll check the bag, turn it over, every waking hour or so, adding Pentacryl as needed for 48 hours minimum. Pentacryl's instructions do say you can soak or immerse the wood, but I don't have a suitable container, nor enough Pentacryl. We'll see how this goes.
The Pentacryl may stop the problem, but on fresh wet boards, I get mold in a short matter of time if I don't stack them with stickers to air dry. Maybe a week?hmm
You must be plain (un)lucky. [sad1]
I had a small trailer load of SPF get rained on many years ago. It sat for a week before I discovered mold was forming where one surface was against another. I used some of my Baquacil swimming pool shock treatment, Baquacil Oxidizer, which is a 27% solution of H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide), to get rid of it. Sprayed it on, brushed and rinsed, then stood to air dry. Worked well.
I haven't had any problems with the green slabs off that log. No mold, no slime, no nothing. :)
Yeah-- it was board on board flat - fresh off the mill with added water for blade lube. No stacking wet wood without stickers if you don't want mold. n*
Here we go. Two slabs cut from the same ponderosa pine. The Pentacryl treated slab (same as the one shown above) is the one one the right in the next picture. The other slab shown has been wrapped in plastic wrap since cutting and has been briefly soaked in a water bath today. The treated slab currently weighs 5 lb, 2 oz. The non treated, control slab, weighs 4 lb 4 oz. No attempt was made to try to get the weights the same, but they are approximately the same thickness. One thing I maybe should have done was to weigh the treated slab before treatment. It has picked up some weight, maybe 6 or 7 ounces.
(https://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q75/djmillerbucket/pentacryl/mimi-IMG_2916.jpg)
Those slabs were patted dry with a paper towel. They have been placed in a plastic box for drying. An oversize lid has been placed on the box. The cut out handles allow for some ventilation, hopefully enough, while the lid should slow down the drying. The box is in an unused, spare room. The forced air heating vent is closed, the door is kept closed normally. The air temperature runs about 60 degrees.
(https://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q75/djmillerbucket/pentacryl/mini-IMG_2917.jpg)
So we're going to watch these two slabs dry.
The goal is to dry the treated slab down without cracking and then make a simple clock from it. A battery quartz movement will be used, inset into a 3 1/8 inch deep hole drilled with a Forstner bit. Hole is not yet drilled.
Sometimes ends of wood are painted to prevent checking/ cracking when drying.
Maybe the Pentacryl will do the same thing
What this stuff does...
It easily infuses into the water in the green wood. (It feels oily but rinsing your hands in water easily washes it off.) Pentacryl enters the cells of the wood. When the H2O evaporates, the Pentacryl causes the cell walls to stiffen or harden; they don't collapse as they do in drying non treated wood. The water evaporates and without the cell wall collapse there is no cracking.
At least that's what I read. Sounds good. :-\
According to the MSDS data sheet it's non-hazardous, non-toxic, etc. But I wear vinyl gloves when handling the Pentacryl wet wood.
Drying Day 4
I hadn't had a close look at the two slabs since putting them in the box. I have rotated or flipped them once a day, but simply reached in a turned them.
Today I had a closer look. The untreated control slab has cracks. It has lost 4 oz, or approx 6% of it's weight. [For comparison, the slab in Watching Wood Dry (http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=3566.0) lost 35% of its initial weight by the time it stabilized)
The Pentacryl treated slab has lost maybe 1/2 oz. The scale needle is off the markings, so it's an estimate. The treated slab has no cracking at all. The coloring is a little different than the control slab. (Pentacryl is an amber brown color, not unlike many wood finishes, varnishes, etc.
(https://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q75/djmillerbucket/pentacryl/mini-IMG_295758.jpg)
That is quite a difference Don. Pentacryl is expensive?
Quote from: desdawg on December 04, 2007, 07:48:13 AM
...expensive?
Depends on how you look at it. :-\
The wood was free. Pentacryl is $20 more or less, depending on your source, for a 32 oz bottle. That slab soaked up (or I dribbled and wasted) about $7 - 8 worth.
If this holds up as it continues to dry, and I believe it will, it'll allow me to complete a nice simple clock without any face cracks. That'll look nice in the cabin wall. I also have a some smaller and thinner slabs I'm going to treat.
Of course it would be ideal for keeping cordwood walls from cracking, etc. But
that would be
mega-expensive.
Pentacryl is available in 30 and 55 gallon drums. :o
In my reading about cordwood construction I ran across one person who was doing a borate treatment on his logs. The cost of the borate solution was pretty high so he started making his own. His recipe was as follows, everything measured in liters since he is in Canada:
2 liters glycol antifreeze, 1.12 liters 20 mule team borax (from Wallyworld) .8 liters Boric Acid (from a pharmacy), 2 liters water. Heat the liquids to 250 degrees using a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature and slowly mix in the powders. This would be the blue green stuff I was buying at Home Depot for $16/gallon I believe. We were discussing this earlier, maybe in another thread. I don't think this solution does what the Pentacryl does but it is a wood preservative designed to keep moisture out.
Glycol antifreeze, or rather polyethylene glycol antifreeze is a more dilute, plus anto corrosive additives, form of PEG1000 which was the original substance used for stabilizing green wood. It has some drawbacks; difficult to impossible to get a finish to stick to it, much slower to be absorbed by the wood as well as slower drying, and it tends to leach out of the wood when it gets wet or heated. But it prevents cracking.
PEG1000 is a concentrated form of polyethylene glycol that is a solid that melts at about 105 F.
Maybe the anti freeze in the mixture helps retard the cracking somewhat while the borax/boric acid helps keep the insects away, or at least keeps them dieing if they feast on the wood. Boric acid has insecticidal, fungicidal, and herbicidal properties. You don't want your kid or your dog licking the wood.
In my searching on this I ran across a website that sold plastic "wood" blanks for making slab clocks. The crazy image of a house wall covering in dozens of identical plastic logs immediately flashed through my mind. Too weird.
The plastic wood clock could go great on your Trex deck.
I negotiated my way out of that. ;) It'll be PT green stuff like the gazebo. ;D
I picked up some treated 2X4's yesterday at the plant where they are treated. I have such a plant in my neighborhood. I asked the guy what ever happened to the old wulmanized lumber with the pecker tracks. He said we can only use that on outdoor products like guard rail posts, fence posts, etc. Anything going indoors has to use the borate treatment. It was his opinion that the offgassing was so minimal no one would even notice. He said every fence post in the country was treated the old way (I don't know the right terminology if you haven't guessed) with horses and cattle gnawing on them for years. Amazingly enough they are not dropping dead all over the pasture.
I am framing knee walls for skirting on a mobile home and am using the treated lumber for both plates and the short studs. Since I am cutting these into 20" pieces I am getting a good look inside. These are being treated in a pressure vat and the penetration isn't complete and uniform. I also have some of the older lumber that I was using up with the incision marks and the difference is apparent immediately. So we take one step forward and three steps back.
I could be off base, but I believe the use of the incisor machine is species dependent. Woods like Doug Fir are denser and require that. I saw the machine at the treatment plant here a long time ago... looks like a buch of bicycle sprockets.
The uneven penetration is why the fine print always advises treating the end cuts with brush on preservative.
Wood Slab Update:
the Pentacryl treated slab is down another 1.5 ounces; now 5 lb 0.0 oz.
the cobtrol slab dropped 1.5 oz as well; now 3 lb 11 oz.
No cracks at all in the Pentacryl slab, a few more widened in the control slab.