Hi ! I'm trying to stabilize some nice maple burl with natural edge to cast in alumilite after. But after all the vacuum chamber and the oven treatment at 200 degrees, my blanks come out stabilize but with soo much crystalize resin in all the voids of the burl and they are quite messy. What should i try to prevent all the excess cactus juice from doing such a mess ? I hope i can express myself clear enough
There are two main things that cause excess bleed out when stabilizing: wood that is not dry and cure temperature that is too high.
First, make sure your wood is at 0% moisture. The way to do this is to cook the wood at 220° F for a minimum of 24 hours. Then take the wood out of the oven and immediately place it in air tight containers or ziplock bag until it is cool enough to stabilize. Second, make sure your oven temperature is 190-200° F when curing your blanks. Do not trust the dial on the oven. Use a separate oven thermometer inside the oven (note, a meat thermometer is NOT an oven thermometer).
If you are going to cast your stabilized blanks, cure them without wrapping them in foil. Foil does nothing to keep the resin in the wood. The primary reason for using foil is to contain the bleed out so you don't get the mess in the oven and to allow you to stack your blanks together without having them glued together when cured.
When you plan to cast the blanks, you can use a drip pan under the blanks to catch the bleed out. I like to use bamboo skewers under the blanks to raise them up off the bottom of the drip pan. Orient the blanks so that any areas that are likely to pool up with the resin as it bleeds out are facing down. That way the bleed out will drip away from the blanks and you will have little clean up. Make sure your blanks are not touching each other when using this method. If they are touching, they will glue together and you will not be able to easily get them apart.