Pool cue wood stabilizing chambers!

J

Jon Kennedy

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Hello Guys! Just throwing this out there, and was woundering if any of you wanted to build cues with stabilized and would you if a guy could build a stabiling chamber for pool cues??? this just something i have been thinking about!!
Jon
 
I already made the mistake of posting about a chamber for stabilizing....do a search they are out there. Good luck with the can of worms.
 
The cactus juice chamber looks to be a nice rig for the money. The only issue with vacuum stabilizing is that certain woods do not easily accept the resin. For woods that do, it's a pretty easy & very effective process. With the cactus juice chamber, toaster oven, & typical automotive maintenance vacuum pump, a guy can be set up for a few hundred bucks. I built my chamber before any were available to buy, and have maybe $100 in it. With a Harbor Freight vacuum pump & Sam's Club toaster oven, I'm less than $500 deep into the rig. I have been through about six gallons of resin thus far and have had wonderful success stabilizing burls and spalted/half rotted woods that would otherwise be of no use in a cue.

Here's some woods I have stabilized for cues, all of which were too unstable or too soft before stabilization. I commonly cuts woods like this & have loads of it. If not for stabilizing, they'd never be useable in a cue. After stabilizing, I have no worry at all using them.


 
cue stabilizing chamber

I know all about the other chambers that you are talking about! I have been building vacuum chambers for a long time and i am the developer of the ZK-TR90 stabilizing resin that is being used all over the world, I have bee asked by a few cue builders to make longer stabilizing chambers for the cue industry, and was looking for feedback on the idea.
qbilder said:
The cactus juice chamber looks to be a nice rig for the money. The only issue with vacuum stabilizing is that certain woods do not easily accept the resin. For woods that do, it's a pretty easy & very effective process. With the cactus juice chamber, toaster oven, & typical automotive maintenance vacuum pump, a guy can be set up for a few hundred bucks. I built my chamber before any were available to buy, and have maybe $100 in it. With a Harbor Freight vacuum pump & Sam's Club toaster oven, I'm less than $500 deep into the rig. I have been through about six gallons of resin thus far and have had wonderful success stabilizing burls and spalted/half rotted woods that would otherwise be of no use in a cue.

Here's some woods I have stabilized for cues, all of which were too unstable or too soft before stabilization. I commonly cuts woods like this & have loads of it. If not for stabilizing, they'd never be useable in a cue. After stabilizing, I have no worry at all using them.


Click to expand...
 
chamber

i have built my own chamber also,and personally think that stabilizing adds a higher quality wood to the cue making.i think that alot of cue makers might feel that stabilizing the wood would affect the play of the cue and not be willing to venture away from tradition.it will be interesting to watch the transition,just like when laminates first appeared.
 
treed said:
i have built my own chamber also,and personally think that stabilizing adds a higher quality wood to the cue making.i think that alot of cue makers might feel that stabilizing the wood would affect the play of the cue and not be willing to venture away from tradition.it will be interesting to watch the transition,just like when laminates first appeared.
Click to expand...

Stabilizing does a great job of enabling cue makers to utilize woods that otherwise would have no place in a cue, but does nothing in the way of enhancing playability.
 
Jon Kennedy said:
i am the developer of the ZK-TR90 stabilizing resin that is being used all over the world, I have bee asked by a few cue builders to make longer stabilizing chambers for the cue industry, and was looking for feedback on the idea.
Click to expand...

I have never used your resin so I have no idea how it compares to cactus juice. What, if any, are the differences?

As for making chambers, I'd think there may be a market for it. It really depends on the number of builders who have an interest in stabilizing their own wood and how well you market the product.
 
I have used UltraSeal and the Stick-Fast resins and I like the Stick-fast better. Haven't tried this one yet. To me, building a longer tank/chambers isn't a big deal, IMO. The tricky part is finding an oven that is big enough for the pieces you want to cure. My house stove can only fit a 24" piece, diagonally.
My tank is a 8" round piece of pipe 24" long and about 3/8" thick wall. I capped one end and have a clear lexan top for it with the fittings on it. I then made, out of 2" PVC pipe, individual tanks that hold the wood and the resin and I made them different heights for different length wood. I can fit 2 tanks in the chamber at the same time. I have the chamber sitting on end so it's 24" tall. This prevents the vacuum pump from sucking up the resin by accident. I also turn my wood round first, most of the time, as it uses less resin, and provides easier penetration, IMO.
Dave
 
Dave i have developed three types of ZK-TR90 resins and they will out perform any other resins on the market today! here is some reading for you!

ZK-TR90 Resins

The ZK-TR90 original resin is the same resin as before, this resin is a good all-around operator friendly resin that performs very well with most all types of wood and is a thermo cure resin that cures at 170 to 190 degrees.

The (New) ZK-TR90F is a new resin we developed that is a fast cure fast gel time resin designed for those very porous antler and very soft woods that have a tendency to bleed out during cure, with the fast gel time this prevents bleeding of resin in very pours antler and woods, this resin also is a thermo cure resin and works very well with hot water bath/oven curing.

The (New) ZK-TR90M is a new resin that we developed that has a medium to fast cure designed for hot water bath/oven curing for medium to soft woods.

The New (Under development) ZK-TR90N is a non-thermo cure resin that requires no thermo cure to set, it cures at room temp and is a two part resin, and has a self-life as long as the other resins, this resin will take some other equipment other than your basic chamber and vacuum pump to operate, I will be manufacturing these special stabilizing chambers and systems for this special resin in the future, many stabilizers are calling me on this system already! This will be the new resin of choice for many of us; I will keep you posted on the development of this system and Resin.
 
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Dave38 said:
I have used UltraSeal and the Stick-Fast resins and I like the Stick-fast better. Haven't tried this one yet. To me, building a longer tank/chambers isn't a big deal, IMO. The tricky part is finding an oven that is big enough for the pieces you want to cure. My house stove can only fit a 24" piece, diagonally.
My tank is a 8" round piece of pipe 24" long and about 3/8" thick wall. I capped one end and have a clear lexan top for it with the fittings on it. I then made, out of 2" PVC pipe, individual tanks that hold the wood and the resin and I made them different heights for different length wood. I can fit 2 tanks in the chamber at the same time. I have the chamber sitting on end so it's 24" tall. This prevents the vacuum pump from sucking up the resin by accident. I also turn my wood round first, most of the time, as it uses less resin, and provides easier penetration, IMO.
Dave
Click to expand...
Dave are you using a dry vac or wet vac chamber???
 
hot water bath is submerging blanks after stabilizing in a hot water cure instead of oven cure! woods that have alot of oil in it dont stabilize well
 
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