Pickle wood, anyone? aka chemical reacti
Hey there!
Some weird chemical thing is going on in my little woodshop – mutant rust!
I’ve been machining some reclaimed fir from vinagar vats – very nice stuff after the smell fades. But what was strange was this sticky rust that was being attracted to all the steel surfaces in the shop. The day after a lot of sawing/planing, steel tools in the vicinity of the cut parts were growing this reddish brown fuzz. A chisel left near by was covered with it, and a square, and my delta tenoning jig. But the fuzz wasn’t brittle when scraped, like you would see with regular rust. It had a somewhat gummy stickyness like a resin. It was even on the table saw crank wheels and fence rails, to some extent.
I wiped everything down with wd-40, except the square, just to see what was going to happen to it. a couple days later the fuzz had ‘dried’ enough such that when you scraped it, a dry powder came off. The metal is somewhat etched..
Any suggestions as to what’s going on? Is the fine dust that normally settles in the shop, along with some vinagar content in the wood/air, causing this reaction?
What should I use to clean up my tools with?
and LBNL, is the pickle wood going to be resistant to gluing?
Thanks for your thoughts,
mike.
Replies
Hey Mike,
Vinegar is essentially 4% acetic acid, which is a very volitile, weak organic acid. It is so volitile, that if someone on the third floor of our laboratory building should leave the cap off of a bottle, it will stink up the entire fourth floor overnight. And our building is well ventilated.
If you're sawing up vinegar vats with a table saw, or circular saw, you're undoubtedly atomizing acetic acid all over your shop, and it will attack your tools.
You may very well have problems with glue adheasion. I would suggest using glues specifically formulated for acidic woods, like oak. Industrial Formulator's G2 epoxy comes to mind for one example.
Tom
Ps. I just re read your post; are the vats vinegar vats, for making vinegar, or pickle vats, for making pickles? If they're pickle vats, you may also have problems with salt saturation, which can muck up even the best glues. It might also explain the wierd rust, as the dust would be hydroscopic.
Good luck,
T
Edited 2/15/2005 2:58 pm ET by tms
Edited 2/15/2005 2:58 pm ET by tms
I wonder if we're drawing on the same stash of pickle wood. Does the name Gedney's mean anything to you?
Anyway, I got a bunch of this stuff some five years ago -- from vats that were used to cure pickles. Some redwood, but mostly cedar -- but all of it beautiful, old growth.
Most of the stuff I got was about 2" thick, and had been stacked outside, exposed to the weather for a few years. The surface was crusty (with salt, I would imagine), and I used a big band saw to take off maybe a 1/4" of the crud.
Once milled and planed, I didn't have any problems with gluing it up (with either Titebond or Titebond II). On most of the projects, I used an oil/vanish concoction for the finish, and had no problems with that either.
EDIT: the dust from this stuff was kind of gooey, and I did clean it up right away(broom/vacuum), but didn't have any rust problems because of it. I did most of my cutting/planing outside in the garage, and always wore a dust mask -- since I assumed the stuff was crawling with mold spores or god knows what else.
Edited 2/15/2005 6:28 pm ET by nikkiwood
Hi "Nikki", so you've dipped into the pickle stash as well, heh. But, no, Gedney's isn't a name I've heard. My source here in Olympia just said it was from California, from an 80 year old pickling plant. They also had redwood, as you mentioned. Your description is exactly what I got - net 2x5". It's pretty tight, but not as tight as fir I've seen from more northerly parts - I never would have guessed that, but it makes sense that California trees grow more in the winter than do Canadian, so the ring count is lower per inch.
glad to hear that your glue didn't fail, either.
That bit about mold spores?? Is that something I should be concerned with? I don't wear any mask - just rely on dust collection. (and sometimes holding my breath as the table saw blade is spraying me, heh).
Thanks a bunch.
mike.
Re: mold sporesNaw, I don't know anything about this stuff; given the nasty shape the wood was in, it just seemed prudent to don the mask. I can't hold my breath for very long.........
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