re: Woodworking questions (for New and Old alike)

Tony, you probably can’t completely, but you can do a decent job by turning slowly, and if you come across a crack, or tear-out, or any sign of the wood starting to come apart, hit it with thin CA, wait for it to soak in, then zap it with accelerator before you start turning again. If you’ve got a hole or crack, push some sawdust from the turning into it before putting on the thin CA. It may take multiple layers to fill the void before you can move on, but if you do fill the void, you’ll likely be able to proceed without blowing up the piece.

If you do blow up the piece, glue it back together with wood glue, let it dry overnight, fill any remaining cracks with CA and sawdust, zap with accelerator, and on you go. It’s slow, but if you’re patient, you can rescue blanks that were in multiple pieces, as long as you can find enough to piece it together.

You can also stabilize very punky wood by drying it thoroughly (toaster oven, 220 degrees, overnight), then simply immersing it in cactus juice and waiting for it to quit bubbling, then wrapping the wood in tin foil, and baking it to set the resin (190-200F, again overnight if you want to be sure). It won’t guarantee penetration as good as using a vacuum chamber, but it’ll probably do the job. It works better the more punky the wood is.