# Baking After Stabilizing ?



## Chris S.

I am obviously new to this and have lots of quesitons. Hopefully the moderators don't shut me down as feel like I am monopolizing this forum lately. 

Anyways, the question is about baking after soaking wood to stabilize. I have been getting great vacuum on chamber, and letting ittem soak up juice for days until no more going in. I am using cactus juice. I have been wrapping everything up in foil, baking in oven that is about 190 when I put items in. Temps drop down to around 150 then slowly creep up to 190-200 degrees. May take a few hours for it to slowly raise the temp to this piont. After reaches this piont will leave in over for multiple hours until all resin is cured and then some extra to be safe that inside is good. 

My question is centered around the amount of resin that comes out of blanks when curing. Pen blanks has not been anthing major but larger blanks seems like a lot of resin is coming out of them during baking process. I recently did some buckeye burls which soaked up a lot of resin, when baking they put out a lot of resin that cures on surface of blank and runs out of foil. Cooking last blank right now. I tried something different with this one. When pulled out of solution I left blank to drain for about an hour then when baked I put in oven without foil. Appears so far less has pushed out of blank and is cooking better. These blanks are about 6" x 2" x 2" in size. 

Is this amount of resin coming out normal or am I doing something wrong. Blanks are very heavy compared to when starting so they are without a doubt holding lots of resin inside still.

Reactions: Like 1


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## ironman123

@TurnTex is the man in the know on this.


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## Kevin

Chris S. said:


> I have been wrapping everything up in foil, baking in oven that is about 190 when I put items in. Temps drop down to around 150 then slowly creep up to 190-200 degrees. May take a few hours for it to slowly raise the temp to this piont.



Are you cooking a lot of wood at once in a full size oven? I use toaster ovens and usually just have one going at a time, but I never see much deviation in temperature unless it is crammed full which I normally do not do, instead I use the second oven. 



Chris S. said:


> My question is centered around the amount of resin that comes out of blanks when curing.



This will vary depending on too many things to list. One thing I encourage new guys to do is try more than one resin. See which one works best for you. Stabilizing is not rocket science - the best teacher is experience. Avoid the line of thought that there is a "best" resin because they all have subtle, and some not-so-subtle differences and once you use them all enough you can settle on the one that works best for you.


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## Kevin

Chris S. said:


> I am obviously new to this and have lots of quesitons. Hopefully the moderators don't shut me down as feel like I am monopolizing this forum lately.



BTW Chris the most important thing on a forum is content. Nothing else can replace it as far a value for many reasons. So please never apologize for asking questions, that's our main reason for existence.

Reactions: Agree 4


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## Chris S.

bought a new toaster over last night which is holding temp much better. Put a thermometer in oven with chunk of wood to make sure what real temp is. Maybe baking to low for temp. Guess might try starting at 200 degrees and see how things go. I had bad incident with old toaster over where temp spiked to 275 right after put blanks in and they seemed to expell a large amount of resin. I just thougth nothing would come out when you baked the wood so suprised to see resin come out when cooking.


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## Kevin

I always cook a little hotter than what the resin sellers suggest and have had no problems doing so.


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## SENC

Chris S. said:


> When pulled out of solution I left blank to drain for about an hour then when baked I put in oven without foil



That is working against your goal. You want to get the wood into the heat as fast as possible when it comes out of the resin. The goal is to get it cured to minimize drainage. By allowing it to drain, you've reversed the good you did by letting the blank remain in the resin. Preheat your oven, pull your blank out of the resin, and wrap it and get it in the oven as fast as possible.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Chris S.

@SENC i had the same thought but figured would give it a try. This last one defintely had less force out of it but did feel a little bit lighter than the rest. Lots of learning happening with every screw up I have.


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## jetcn1

I let my blanks drip dry over night sometimes and then cook them unwrapped . No bleed out at all and no weight loss . That is what works for me .


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## JR Custom Calls

Bleed out is going to happen no matter what... The more resin that goes in, the more that's going to bleed out. Buckeye and box elder burl both generally bleed out a lot. What I do to minimize bleed out is I start my oven out at 190, then raise to 200 after a few hours. The hotter the oven, the more bleed out you'll get.

Reactions: Informative 1


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## TimR

The pics on bleedout after unwrapping them look like mine as well. I found investing in a decent thermometer was a good move. Definitely DO NOT Rely on temperature setting for the toaster oven. Mine was way off, on the order of 50 deg F.
I get mine preheated to 200F and 'stable', then I insert the blanks. Finding that 'sweet spot' on the temperature dial is key. Once I marked it, I can repeatedly set it there for 200F. I don't leave my blanks in any more than about 1 hour, maybe a bit more for a 2" thick blank...but not several hours.
Also, don't leave your oven unmonitored. I've had the resin drip on the heating element and start a small fire.
I've try to contain as much of the dripping in a drip pan as possible. More and more, I've been letting the blanks sit on small aluminum foil "inverted V's" on my drip pan, without a wrapping. I like the results and the need to trim away the resin when wrapped is all but eliminated.

Reactions: Informative 1


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## TurnTex

Two things cause excess bleed out...temperature higher than specified and moisture in the wood. The first pics in this post have evidence of moisture still in the wood. Are you properly drying your wood at 220° F for a minimum of 24 hours? If not, try that and you will get less bleed out and better overall results.

Reactions: Informative 1


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## TurnTex

TimR said:


> I get mine preheated to 200F and 'stable', then I insert the blanks. Finding that 'sweet spot' on the temperature dial is key. Once I marked it, I can repeatedly set it there for 200F. I don't leave my blanks in any more than about 1 hour, maybe a bit more for a 2" thick blank...but not several hours



Be careful with this. As the oven ages, the temp will get lower and lower until the resin will no longer cure, at least that has been my experience. When I first started this, I too marked my oven dial. After a year or so, I went to cure some blanks and they would not cure. I panicked, thinking I had some bad resin out there and for some reason, decided to put the thermometer in the oven. It was only reading 160° when set on the mark. I recommend that you get a good oven thermometer and keep it in the oven so you know what the temp is all the time. As for leaving your blanks in the oven longer than 1-2 hours...that is not an issue at all and does not cause any ill effects. Once the resin cures, it is cured and heat resistant to 390° F (at least my resin is). If you don't leave them in long enough and they don't cure properly, if you let them cool down before you find that out, you are pretty much out of luck, They will never cure properly id you put them back in the oven after they have been heated and cooled back down.

Reactions: Like 1


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## SENC

jetcn1 said:


> I let my blanks drip dry over night sometimes and then cook them unwrapped . No bleed out at all and no weight loss . That is what works for me .


Are you saying there is no bleed out and no weight loss while dripping dry overnight?

Or that all of the bleed out and weight loss occurs overnight so none by the time it goes in the oven? If the latter, you might experiment with your process versus straight into the oven.


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## TimR

Thanks Curtis, I do leave the thermometer in every batch without fail, as a "belt and suspenders" approach. Good point that could have been misinterpreted. Interesting about the issue with inadequate heat cure, and probably a good reason to leave in a bit longer, for added security.


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## Chris S.

I too have bought a oven thermometer and that has helped greatly. Possible some moisture in blanks as when drying them they began to check and crack really bad so I stopped drying before blanks get rendered useless. They were not my blanks so did not want to ruin them as have no ideal what the owner will be using them for. The pen blanks I have done did have much less squeeze out which were dried for at least 24 hours so maybe you are correct about moisture. Thanks for the heads up on that.


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## jetcn1

SENC said:


> Are you saying there is no bleed out and no weight loss while dripping dry overnight?
> 
> Or that all of the bleed out and weight loss occurs overnight so none by the time it goes in the oven? If the latter, you might experiment with your process versus straight


Only the resin on the out side of the blank drips off back into the container to be used again. It will not run out of the blank . I cure burl cap pcs for casting with no bleed out at all on the pcs . I have done hundreds of pcs like this with no weight loss or bleed out .

Reactions: Informative 1


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