“Pressurizing” the Ramrod

[Palustris]

Howdy, Foax!

A question about ramrod “seasoning,” if you please. I’ve long been given to understand that submerging a fresh hickory ramrod in coal oil for 12 months produces a rod that is unusually strong, highly flexible, and virtually impossible to break by bending. More than this, a rod (or rods) placed into a PVC tube filled with coal oil, capped at both ends, and placed under pressure, can be ready in as little as a few days. Assuming this is all true (and yep, I’m durnsure old enough to understand all that “assume” means), my question is, how exactly do you rig the PVC tube for pressurizing? My guess is that you simply cut a Schrader valve off a bike tire, leaving a skirt of about 3/4 inch at the valve base, then drill a hole in the PVC cap just large enough to allow the valve to pass through, and then epoxy the whole shebang in place. Next, the PVC cap with valve would be cemented to the PVC tube (already capped at its opposite end, of course) containing the rod(s) and coal oil, and after drying overnight, 5 ”“ 15 lbs. of pressure would be applied using a small compressor or bike pump. A week or two later, the PVC tube would be tapped and drained, the cap cut off, and the ramrod(s) removed.

Now, this is my best guess, but I’d sure like to hear from someone who’s actually installed such a pressure fitting, or anyone who might have a better technique. Any takers?

Thanks & best regards, Walt

 

[Black Hand]

Old wives tale (along with soaking in kerosene)
Doesn't make a bit of difference....

 

[BrownBear]

I had never tried it myself, but was about sold on doing so, with all the pressure being applied by a friend who's a real advocate. As a final push he showed me his own "conditioned" ramrod and how flexible it was. You guessed it.

He offered to start soaking one for me while he was soaking a replacement for the one he broke in his demo. I begged off.

 

[Palustris]

Disregard, Y'all! B4 I posted this I did a search on this forum to identify any similar threads, but found none. After I posted it, I stumbled across Paul Vallandingham's post (#1046285)and discovered I'd been suckered! "Fool me once..." etc.

Sorry if you wasted your time! Have a great day!

Walt

 

[123.DieselBenz]

Just a FYI you can buy those schrader valves with 1/4" pipe fittings ... Though sounds like you won't need it for this idea ...

 

[BrownBear]

Long as this is about "finishing" ramrods, I'll pass on something I just figgered out. :redface:

I was making up some new rods, one for a gun that's pretty finely finished. I decided it needed a little fancier ramrod, so I stained it deep with Fiebings, then "boned" the rod really smooth with a polished steel rod. Looks really good and smooth as a baby's bottom.

Shot the gun yesterday and of course got a little patch lube on the rod. It was so gosh darned slick I couldn't begin to hang onto it and seat a ball with it. That was a dry day too, and I can only guess what it would be like with a little water in the air.

Won't be any more slick ramrods on my guns! The way it all ties back to this thread is my impulse to break that rod and take it out of circulation. Dang! I'd folded it almost in half before it finally snapped, and not a drop of coal oil in its gene pool. Just good clean hickory.

 

[Stophel]

What you get is a ramrod that stinks like kerosene!!! :redface:

:grin:

 

[jerrywh]

This will work but only temporarily.
the rod will dry out again in about a week or so. Also it will swell and not fit in the gun until it dries some. Not guessing I know from experience. I have had very good success by pressurizing in poloyurethane. After pressurizing it must be allowed to dry for about a week or it will not fit the rr hole. But it will last for years if used normally.
On most of my custom guns I die the rod under pressure and treat them with polyurethane both. The end result ia a rod that looks exactly like ebony and is very strong.

 

[Robby]

I make my own from straight grain hickory. Its not that difficult, kind of like making a loooong arrow shaft :grin: . After I get them to a color that sort of matches the gun, I warm them up to where they are hot to touch and slather them with linseed oil. Wipe them down good, done! Once and a while, if they look kind of dry, I wipe them down with linseed oil again. During inattentive loading, once and a while, I've bent these rod's almost ninety degrees and never had one break, but I think it has more to do with the straight grain than anything else.

 

[PreserveFreedom]

I must add that scientifically, you cannot compress a liquid or a solid (that is why your car's brake lines are filled with brake fluid instead of air). You can only compress gasses. That being taken into consideration, the only advantage that could possibly be gained by applying pressure to a hunk of wood that is submerged in a liquid is that any air that may be in the wood could be driven out and replaced by the liquid. I am thinking it would take a lot more pressure than one would want to put into a homemade PVC device though.

 

[nmdd]

Although I have never done this to a ramrod, it was my impression was that you had to use a kerosene/atf mixture for the absorption qualities of the automatic transmission fluid. I know that I tested oil leaks on vehicles for over 30 years by touching a cloth rag to it and watch how fast it absorbed. ATF will immediately go into the cloth rag, I can only assume it would also absorb into wood as well. I know there was no tranny fluid back in the day and not pc/hc and I have no intention of soaking my ramrods, I feel they look better finished.....just saying... :v

 

[jerrywh]

I do it on a regular basis at 40psi. Wood is not a solid. Frankly you are uninformed. A lot of people who work with wood use this and the vacuum method to stabilize wood products. I have some madrone pistol blanks that have been stablized with polyurethane. They have properties simular to plastic. Go study. I am working with one mow for a Boutet style shotgun I'm making. After pressure dying it I sawed about 1/4" off the end to see how deep the die penetrated. The hickory rod is solid black all the way through. When I took it out of the chamber it was about .030 oversize. After drying for two days it is almost back to original size.
This gun has one of my ebonized rods. http://jwh-flintlocks.net/chief-rs-full-best-pg1.jpg

 

[PreserveFreedom]

If wood is not a solid, what do you believe it is?

 

[Cascade Pete]

High in Moisture content, until dried(still contains moisture) The dyes are just filling the capillaries that the moisture used to occupy..Pressure helps this process along.....So wood would be a semi-permiable solid...

 

[jerrywh]

Like the guy says. it's a semi solid. It's porous. Is styrofoam a solid? wood is simular to styrofoam. How about Balsa wood? is it a solid? Some woods are less porous than others, naturally. Polyurethane fills the pours and binds the fibers together. If wood was solid you could not die it or aqua fortis would not stain it you would have to paint it.

 

[Zonie]

Perhaps a better way to think of wood than styrofoam is a bunch of long stemmed grass like wheat stalks all bunched together in a very tight bundle.
After all, that is pretty much what it is.

There are air spaces between the stems just like their are air spaces between the woods grain.

These air spaces in the wood allow water, stains, oils, and plastics to penetrate deeply into it.

If a pressure to force the fluid in, or a vacuum to remove the air is created and then released the depth and speed of the penetration of the fluid is increased.

 

[BrownBear]

I'm not an advocate by any means, but I kinda wonder if heat would work as well or better for penetration.

I'm friends with a custom bamboo flyrod builder of long experience, and he's capped one end of 2" copper pipe and rigged it to stand on end for applying finish to his blanks. Wrapped in a heat coil with a reostat, he can control heat very precisely with no open flames.

Idle speculation, but I can't help wondering about heat instead of or in addition to pressure.

 

[gearheart]

Heat expands air. Boyle's law. This drives air out of the bamboo rod and when it cools it draws the finish in. Also the finish will be thinner when heated. :thumbsup:

 

[mtmshieldshotmail.com]

*snip*

These air spaces in the wood allow water, stains, oils, and plastics to penetrate deeply into it.

*snip*

or minerals, as the porous wood begins the long journey to becoming "petrified."

Regards,
Mike

 

[StewartLeach]

In the days before plastic stocks, standard procedure for stocks on match conditioned M14 rifles was to impregnate the wood with polyurethane. The process involved a chamber that used heat and pressure. The resulting stocks were quite moisture resistant and dimensionally stable.

As others noted, wood is a biologic material, with wide species to species and tree to tree variations in cell size, grain structure, cross linking, and many other variables. That's why we make stocks out of maple and walnut instead of white pine, and why we look the blank over with care.