Lime Sulfur, Tung Oil, BLO, Wood Hardener, Smith's CPES, Paraloid, Titebond III, Secret formulae...

BillsBayou

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I am telling you what works and for the record on a dime - old school... You can reinvent the wheel if you like, not my business and I refuse to argue it or get into production methods for distribution at my age.

Good growing,

Grimmy
I won't argue with success. Glad it works.
 

bonsaibp

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I've been using the PC Petrifer for about 10 years now and have had no issues. Mostly on CA Junipers but on lots of others as well. I've never had a issue on an trunks with it not soaking out. Maybe if on a wall , boat siding etc. it may be necessary to drill holes but has never been an issue. Sometimes it looks a little glossy at first but within a couple of months at most it dulls to be unnoticeable . I would suggest anything used to color the deadwood be done first.
 

BillsBayou

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Any update on the experiment? Really curious honest.

Grimmy
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.
 

GrimLore

Bonsai Nut alumnus... we miss you
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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.

I will be HIGHLY interested in the results of your extensive time and investment into this - good stuff, and thank you :)

Grimmy
 

wireme

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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.

A suggestion to add to your experiments, specifically the tung oil. You might want to give it a couple coats thinned before the 100 percent.
Often when oiling wood I'll cut the oil with turpentine, half and half for the first coat or two. Penetrates deeper that way.
 

BillsBayou

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A suggestion to add to your experiments, specifically the tung oil. You might want to give it a couple coats thinned before the 100 percent.
Often when oiling wood I'll cut the oil with turpentine, half and half for the first coat or two. Penetrates deeper that way.
Many people who had negative comments regarding tung oil complained that it was too thick. I appreciate the suggestion. Would I use tung oil cut with turpentine on a bonsai? I'm not oiling an armoire.

Note: At a Boy Scout Jamboree in my father's youth, he was tasked with gathering wood for a campfire building contest. He and a friend found a rotted pine tree stump. It stunk of turpentine. While other scouts were shaving kindling to nurse a spark from flint sparks, my father's troop presented a few big chunks of smelly wood. The judge complained until my father showed him the stump. Since the wood was gathered from the forest, it was allowed. It took only a few sparks to ignite in a massive gout of flame. The troop won that particular contest.

I'm not looking for that particular result.

I don't think I'd actually get that result, either. I'm going to try both turpentine and denatured alcohol as transport media. I'm curious which will carry the tung oil further into the wood.

One problem I anticipate is lateral transport of my wood preservatives. I'm going to mask off each section on the bald cypress trunk with a 1-inch piece of tape. However, I expect different wood preservatives to make headway along the length of the trunk before they penetrate towards the center of the trunk. I'm hoping the collisions won't be too significant.

Then again, what if I were to paint the boarders between the testing zones? Hmmm... that could work.

One last thing, I've heard that some people use superglue to preserve wood. Given the amount of area I need to cover and the cost of superglue, I won't be testing it.
 

Saddler

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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.
I’ve read this thread with great interest. Any progress in the test? Is cyano acrilate being tested? That’s the one I was researching when I can across this. Regardless, I look forward to the results.
 

BillsBayou

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I’ve read this thread with great interest. Any progress in the test? Is cyano acrilate being tested? That’s the one I was researching when I can across this. Regardless, I look forward to the results.
Death in the immediate family put all bonsai projects on hold.
 

substratum

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A friend of mine owns a tung nut oil company here in north Florida. Good folks. You can find it on their FB page: https://www.facebook.com/gulfcoasttungoil2010/
Their product is 100% tung nut oil.

Tung nut trees used to be BIG business here in the Tallahassee area, and when China went into full production of it, the American market largely collapsed (early-mid 20th Century). When I was in High School ('70s), a favorite party spot was "The Tung Grove" which still had hundreds of acres of trees in the middle of nowhere (now neighborhoods), where they were growing hay. You can see the remnants of the groves and volunteer trees all around here during the bloom. My friend that has gotten into the business is leasing land to grow trees on a 20K+ acre plantation that is all about sustainable, organic, and low-impact agribusiness. He also is encouraging people to plant the trees with the promise that they'll have a market to sell the nuts. One of the biggest problems they run into is that major purchasers want a MASSIVE supply line, and these mom & pop operations have real difficulties meeting those expectations, even when they do the cooperative approach to bundling products.

They press the nuts for the oil and grind the husks and shells for composting (composting is a BIG operation on this plantation). I attended a demo of the nut pressing process... it would be a good cure for insomnia, as it is slow-going. The decrease in tung nut oil quality from China (because they cut it with other oils), and an increase in demand for quality wood finishing products in the USA is what opened the door for this venture.
 

Saddler

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That is where I got started on my research. I’m very familiar with CA, having used it for almost 30 years, but this is a completely new way to use it for me. What I’m wondering is thin (5 second cure) verse medium (30 sec) verse thick (60 sec) on the penetration of wood. Then what each looks like afterwards. I just tried using some “medium” CA that is thicker than it should be on a test branch on my spruce that has 200 year old dead wood on it that has probably deteriorated more last winter then the last half century. I could use something more common in bonsai, but they all seem to need to be reapplied every year and if I’m honest with myself, I’m not capable of doing it every year at this point in my life. Something more permanent is preferred if possible. How long does CA last? Ten years I have had scissors I fixed with it, but that’s not a good parallel in the loosest terms.
 

Joe Dupre'

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My personal observation with wood rot is basically this. If all of the loose, rotted material is removed so it doesn't stay soaked with water, the remaining wood will slowly oxidize and form a glazed surface that is resistant ( not impervious) to water and rot. This is not a permanent solution, but in the 4 years I've been in bonsai and the 60 years before that observing trees in the wild, as well as trimmed LARGE oak trees, it seems to work as well as anything else. Trees have gotten along very well without man for 200-300 million years.

Having said that, all I use on cuts or carvings is crushed charcoal mixed with water and painted on the cut ...........probably more for aesthetics than anything else.

I say use whatever works for you.
 

Saddler

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My personal observation with wood rot is basically this. If all of the loose, rotted material is removed so it doesn't stay soaked with water, the remaining wood will slowly oxidize and form a glazed surface that is resistant ( not impervious) to water and rot. This is not a permanent solution, but in the 4 years I've been in bonsai and the 60 years before that observing trees in the wild, as well as trimmed LARGE oak trees, it seems to work as well as anything else. Trees have gotten along very well without man for 200-300 million years.

Having said that, all I use on cuts or carvings is crushed charcoal mixed with water and painted on the cut ...........probably more for aesthetics than anything else.

I say use whatever works for you.
I’m not sure what works for me. This wood isn’t rotting at all, yet. But it is seriously weathered and I don’t think it is going to get any better, probably will start to go down hill quickly in the new environment. D598B63A-3AD1-4D10-A2B1-EE49D564B82A.jpeg88B90797-483F-4F70-9F5B-4318C91FCF02.jpeg Besides shortening some/all the jins, is there anything I can do to improve this wood? I don’t know if there is anything that can be done to improve this dead wood besides preserving it, but if there is, please share. I have never seen made by nature dead wood like this before so I am guessing I am being blinded by ignorance.
 

Joe Dupre'

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Saddler, I would say that is as close to "real" dead wood as it gets. Real deadwood gradually degrades into dust. If I had money to bet, I'd put it on some sort of epoxy mixture to keep dead wood looking like you want it for the longest amount of time. I use epoxy for boat building and it's as close to a miracle material as anything I've seen. You can mix epoxy with some sort of wood flour or even whole wheat flour ( yes, the kind you make bread with) and make a moldable putty to fill in holes and accentuate shapes.

Two sheets of cheap $10.00 Lowes luan ply, epoxy and glass cloth.
100_0916.jpg
 

Joe Dupre'

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We had a lively discussion on a boat building forum about epoxy saturation. Yes, thinned epoxy will seep into very porous, weathered wood and bind it together to some arbitrary depth. I did an experiment on basic pine plywood with thinned epoxy. Using a magnifying glass on a cross section, I observed about .003" penetration.............maybe the equivalent of two sheets of notebook paper. Some time later, I found a more in-depth study that mirrored my findings. The study found that SOME epoxies had LESS penetration when thinned.
 
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