# Stabilizing, vacuum how long and bubble size



## Mortalis (Oct 4, 2020)

I received some punky wood and have undertaken to stabilizing it as when I tried to turn it it was very fragile.
After 12 hours under vacuum in the Cactus Juice bath I still observe some very very tiny bubble (almost reminiscent of champagne bubbles) one stream from a couple of pieces of this wood.
Should I wait until there are no bubbles or are these very small bubbles not going to make that much of a difference?
I took pictures and a short video. The pictures didn't do my query justice so the short video does the trick.


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## wolf creek knives (Oct 4, 2020)

Personally I'd keep going for a bit.  I did redwood one time that took 4 days to finally get it to stop bubbling.  Just my opinion, but you shouldn't have any streams of bubbles, small one's that come off every few seconds works for me.  But what you've got here is still pretty strong.  I'm also not an expert but have had good luck with CJ in the past.  The only problem I can think that I've ever had was with drift wood, some turned out great while some too little to no CJ.  The other thing I've done with some success is to soak the piece overnight before applying the vacuum.


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## Mortalis (Oct 4, 2020)

Thanks for the feedback.
This was really punky wood but my thought was that viscosity of the juice comes into play with the capillary void size. 
I'll keep going with the vacuum.


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## 1080Wayne (Oct 4, 2020)

I would call it done . My interpretation of streams like that is that they are either small pockets of moisture ( unlikely if you dried the punky wood ) , or pockets of resin which vapourize under low pressure . Soft woods ( spruce , pine , fir etc ) and their cones will do it for days . I don`t think there is much to be gained by eliminating those pockets .


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## Mortalis (Oct 4, 2020)

1080Wayne said:


> I would call it done . My interpretation of streams like that is that they are either small pockets of moisture ( unlikely if you dried the punky wood ) , or pockets of resin which vapourize under low pressure . Soft woods ( spruce , pine , fir etc ) and their cones will do it for days . I don`t think there is much to be gained by eliminating those pockets .


I did dry the wood for at least 12 hours at 220+ºF just to make sure it was dry before I started.


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## robutacion (Oct 4, 2020)

Mortalis said:


> I received some punky wood and have undertaken to stabilizing it as when I tried to turn it it was very fragile.
> *After 12 hours under vacuum in the Cactus Juice bath I still observe some very very tiny bubble (almost reminiscent of champagne bubbles) one stream from a couple of pieces of this wood*.
> Should I wait until there are no bubbles or are these very small bubbles not going to make that much of a difference?
> I took pictures and a short video. The pictures didn't do my query justice so the short video does the trick.


One other possibility to those bubbles after all those hours under vacuum is a leak, obvious a small one, while there the bubbles will keep coming to the surface, in fact, the size and consistency of the bubbles are directly the result of the leak size and they won't ever go away/stop.

Punk wood dried in an oven for all those hours and under vacuum for another 12 hours is more then ready to come out to drain and then cook.

Cheers
George


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## kwd1 (Oct 4, 2020)

Is the wood not covered by the cactus juice?
Not causing bubbles but was just curious.


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