The latest is that I've finally got the 100% Tung Oil. About a week back, the PC Rot Terminator and PC Wood Petrifier came in. Unless anyone else has a way to spend my money on even more crap, here's what I'll be testing:
- Lime Sulfur (One day, I'm going make my own, won't that be fun)
- Smith's CPES (Some say this is nothing but epoxy diluted with denatured alcohol)
- Epoxy (Which I'll dilute with denatured alcohol)
- PC-Rot Terminator (Which might just be another version of Smith's CPES)
- Minwax Wood Hardener (I've had this can for years. Wonder if it ever expires)
- PC-Petrifier (a wood hardener with the consistency of skim milk)
- Tung Oil (No one sells the 100% in stores in NOLA. Had to order it)
- Paraloid (Plastic chips you disolve in acetone and paint on)
I have a dead bald cypress, or two, about the size of the fat end of a baseball bat.
I'm going to mark off 9 sections; paint 8 of them with the compounds; and let them set for a week outside.
Then I'll cut them into 1" wide discs and measure whatever it is that catches my eye.
Next, I'll paint half the cut faces of the discs with the matching compounds for the discs and let that set for a week. Think: Half a clock, from 12 to 6
Plant the discs halfway (on a clock, the 9-3 line) in a section of my yard where bad things happen to buried wood. Bad, like my neighbors likely have a buried termite mound.
Retrieve the discs after a month in the ground, measure results, cut in to quarters and measure the results.
I expect to see significant rot and/or insect damage on all of the wood discs.
I hope to see significant differences in the amounts of damage sustained.
Pressure treating lumber for direct burial is the best way to protect the wood. Since you cannot pressure treat your bonsai, I want to know if I can change the durability of deciduous wood; specifically bald cypress.