Keeping out moisture

Ok this question is really my other question about a didgeridoo, only disguised. The reason being, the fact that its a didge a not a table or chair might put people off in terms of how to deal with it but it basically come down to this.....

I need to keep the moisture out to stop it cracking.

How should I do this in the easiest and cheapest manner. I dont know much about whats available and I live in a unit so it has to easy to do (yes I know Im making life hard for myself).

Here were some on the many thoughts Ive had.

1) Oil it inside and out (tung oil or danish oil...dunno...slush it inside and then drain I guess)
2) Shellac inside and out
3) Shellac outside, tung inside (pun intended)
4) 2 pack estapol as a last, and I mean last resort. The beauty of a didge to me is how close to being natural it is. Fancy and instrument that, short of stripping and sanding, occured totally in nature by itself.........then I cover it in bloody plastic. At least shellac and oil is natural.

Also I would like it to be low maintenace ie not have to oil it again and again.

Can I oil it first then apply shellac.

Im really lost on this and I need it finished by christmas so if anyone can help Id appreciate it.

If it were me, I would get an Organoil product eg Hard Burnishing Oil, Woodsheen or one of those and saturate it with the oil.

Why?

1. The oil wil retard the movement of moisture, not as good as varnish, but still.

2. Organoil smells literally delicious, like orange due to inclusion of orange oil, and tung oil also smells good, unlike linseed oil which stinks. A good smell on a piece of wood which is held close to the olfactory end of your body is important. Once the orange smell is all gone, the tung smell will persist for a long long time.

3. The finish will not look like it is a skin of plastic, but rather it will penetrate the wood and harden inside the outer layer of the wood, becoming part of the wood. A great natural look. It will be matt unless you burnish it to a satin sheen. If you wet sand it, the grain will darken beautifully due to wood dust slurry getting lodged in the grain.

4. You can give a small bottle of the Organoil along with the didge to the recipient, with instructions to re-oil occasionally, especially when the inside looks dry, ensuring it stays resistant against moisture movement. The nice smell will probably result in too much oil being applied by the owner rather than none at all.

5. Food safe - very important.

6. The easiest finish to do in a unit - no mess, no fuss. A natural finish that the future owner can also apply with equal ease and not worry about the safety. You could soak a sponge in the oil and pull it through the inside with a piece of string. Then squeeze the oil out of the sponge, allow the oil to penetrate the inside surface, and pull the sponge through again to mop up any excess.

You could also achieve much of the above by applying Rustin's or Organoil's Danish Oil, but have a little more durable result. The inside would still be better off by getting saturated with oil.

When you apply oil on the outside, after the wood soaking up the oil, be sure to wipe off any excess or it will polymerise as a skin which may look good but not be very resistant to scratches.

Edit: I play the recorder, and these have to be oiled on the inside from time to time to prevent cracking. No different with the didge - occasional re-oiling on the inside will be wise, due to the moist air getting blown through it. There is a lot of moisture on expelled beath.

if you want to waterproof it use poly - even single pack is good enough.
NONE of the arty farty finishes are waterproof enough for a woodwind instrument!

Thanx JUR. I will still be in possession of it as it is for my girlfriend. She has become very interested in playing too. She's been begging me to get another one and I keep putting it off. She keeps wondering why...well its coz Ive been buying and working on this in secret hee hee hee.

I have heard the Estapol 7008 has a not so good finish but I am still in two minds. Anyway thanks for your help so far.

Natural finish for a didgredoo?







Got to be goanna oil. :p :D

Just get him to crawl through the inside a few times......vola!

Hey guys, my grandad told me that he has experimented with beeswax as a polish and mentioned this as being waterproof (which makes sense). Its funny I never considered this as I already have beeswax that I make the mouthpiece for the didge with. I think he said he mixed it with gum turps or somethin.

Anyway this got me thinking...can I make my own formula that can be used to penetrate the didgeridoo from the inside. It will have nothin to do with look as I will finish the outside in a different manner.

Could I use a mix of beeswax, tung oil and gum turps for example. I am assuming the solvent is used as a carrier for the oil and wax to penetrate into the wood and then evaporate quickly.

.....or.....

do I even need the turps ie mix tung oil and wax only .....or.... do I even need oil ie mix wax and turps.........hell, maybe I just need the wax on its own, totally melted........clearly im lost here!

I assume (doing a lot of that lately) that using wax will mean less maintenace as one it get in pores of the wood it will stay there. What about parafin wax, any difference, its about the same price i think.

Can anyone tell me if I am way off track or if they foresee any problems here?

Cheers again.

Natural finish for a didgeridoo ? I imagine that the aborigines used exactly nothing and their didges worked just fine. What makes you think it will crack at all ? Considering that the wood is fairly thin and dry already and since it is hollow it has no internal stress created by different rates of expansion/contraction between inside and outside. So just finish your decoration of the outside and give it a rub over with a rag and a bit of furniture polish. Presto ! the finished article, good for the next hundred years.

Have to agree with Len. All the traditional doos that I have seen have no finish as such. The timber is already dry as they source tree limbs that have died and been eating hollow by termites. The outside is then smoothed and decorated. THen theres that whole blow and breath at the same time thing which still has me baffled whenever I get on the end of the vacumm cleaner pipe! ;)

Sorry guys thats not the case at all!! Please bear with me.

Oh, what make me think itll crack at all......my first one did a week after I got it. When they crack they are useless to play unless you can fiz em up.

The aboriginal culture is clearly very different from ours so lets not start comparing ways and means here.......ok wait I will say a few things.

First off though, do you know what a didgeridoo costs these days, coz I paid $350 for my first one. I took weeks to find coz most people just sell **** and rip you off. Most are sold to tourists and suck (or should that be blow) as an instrument and the didge is a real musical intrument.
Its all cut green as there aint enough seasoned logs lying on the ground for this lucrative business. The trees are still standing and living and breathing while the termites have eaten out the guts (therefoe green, no?). People come along and dont even find a suitable tree, rather chop down everything in sight effectively raping and killing off thousands of trees. A lot of these can never be used. Dont believe....do some research. THIS HAS TO STOP!!!!

Ok, now about the aboriginals. If it breaks they dont care. They try fix it till it cant be fixed no more then cut another. They will also store them in water until they are req. Also living in a tropical area (almost, Arnhem land) they dont have the same swing in humidity and temperature I think.

The fact thats it is thin and green is where the problem is from my understanding but then I dont know much. Just think though that moisture is constantly going into the didge while you play via your breath (and even spit...gross man). Surely this make the inside expand different to the outside causing it to crack under pressure.

If anyone can explain it better id love to hear it, however, IT WILL CRACK and the one in question im talking about already has a hairline crack at the mouthpiece. So all in all I wouldnt have asked if it wasnt a problem.

Ok, back to square one. HELP ME PLEASE.

So what your saying is that your using green timber? If so forget it, it will crack and nothing will stop it. You could wax it but that would surely impede the sound resonation (sp?) cause you need to use a lot of wax to get a good seal, look how they store timber turning blanks.

Didn't the aboriginals in Tassi use doo's? Or is it just in the culture of the NT tribes? Cause i'm the first to admit I nothing on this subject as I'm a kiwi...

If your really concerned, what would probably be the best solution is to imerse the whole thing in a thinned shellac. Its probably the best timber sealer in the world and natural, but do not think for a second that any finish is completely 'water proof' or 'moisture resistant' if the timber is going to crack under seasonal changes, like you say IT WILL CRACK - find a better bit of timber.

No furniture maker in his right mind will use green timber and expect that the finish will stop it from seasonal changes or drying out.

Oil is in my opinion a waste of time and will aid the cracking, as it drys out it will help the timber dry out as well so constant re-application is a given.

In short if a piece of timber wants to crack, nothings going to stop it. Trees lift buiding foundations a little bit of bug poo ain't going to stop it..... :rolleyes:

Could you wrap some sort of metal banding around the didge to physicaly stop it from moving?
Like some wire looped around it in a spiral pattern for the whole lenght...

a couple of thaughts.
Black felas arent too precious about most things if they can find a way that works they'll use it, addaption is thier thing so in this case tradition I don't recon is a problem.

A lot of the didges ive seen have some sort of mouth piece made of resin or bees wax, otherwise they are a bit rough on the face so that will help with your end grain .

I don't think you are realy looking for waterproof, you just want to stablise the thing.

the tone of the instrument is predominantly set by the shape & length of the air collumn so treating the wood souldn't make too much diff.

I would expect wax to be a reasonable option you could use a variety of methods to get it on, paste wax polish, hot wax, hairdrier & hot wax.....

Your not going to tel me that some smart black fella in the last thousand years hasn't tried to wax his favorite didge. we know they had bees wax, we know they had spinifex resin and they used them extensively for other things.

then even if you do find a crack opens up a bit you can bung it up with some wax unless it gets out of controll.

PC statement..btw the words "black fella" in this post are intended in a respectful manner tone.

If you are into didge try this
take a length of 50mm electrical conduit and a length of 50mm plumbing pipe slip them one inside the other and you have a "slide didge" that can be tuned on the go add a whole extra dimension to the whole thing. there was a white fella playing one every day at expo 88 and I have seen yothu yindi experiment with this.

cheers let us know how you go

Vautex,
when harvesting it's not neccesary for them to chop down thousands of trees because belting the trunks will tell you whether the termites have hollowed them out.

Shane,
as far aas I know they always use saplings/small trees, never limbs.

Mick

Journeyman you are right, they dont have to chop the trees down.....but they do. Im not saying they chop down trees untouched by termites but ones that are not "suitably hollowed". Most unfortunately drill holes to check if it is hollow, again, I know this coz mine has one. Aboriginals were smart enought to remove a bit of bark and tap it. They knew the sound of a good tree.

Soundman, you are spot on mate. Most have beeswax as a mouthpiece. Its purpose is for comfort and making the hole the right size, and being plyable, it does a good job. Your right on the other count too, I only want to stabalise it. I dont want to hit cricket balls in the rain with it. It just has to resist moisture from my breath as well as changes in ambient temp eg From my house to me bloody hot car. If I drop it and it cracks...well thats my own dumb ass fault.

The didge was bought from over east without me seeing it in person. I got a photo and a description and thats it. It unfortunately was not to my high expectations and needed modifying. I was told afterwards that he got it on a recent expedition therefore its gotta be green. The sad truth is only a handful of didge makers make good quality "instruments" and take the time to season their wood.

Before picking up the didge about 6 months ago I knew nothing about wood. Now I know next to nothing. Mine cracked within a week of the purchase so I decided to do a lot of research. Im no expert but you take my word on most of what I say about the didge. I was pretty ignorant of most of these facts myself in the beginning. I tend to do my research which is why Im here asking a billion questions.

Hell I might just ask another "What about tung or linseed and kero?"

Anyway it wont affect the sound too much. Even somethin as drastic as a 2 pack resin will only brighten the tone and actually makes a cleaner sound.

next round......

ok, ill jump the gun on the next round of replies (thanks by the way) coz I just wanna say somethin.

Ive spent a lot of time on this didge. I made a series of custom chisels for the job. Even made some for an air hammer. I then spent hours chiseling it till the sound and feel was right. Then spent hours sanding off the crap was put on it in an act of utterly poor workmanship. You could see a bit of cardboard got stuck to it and was torn off and left furries on it????? DO YOU HAVE NO PRIDE IN YOUR WORK.

Anyway ive had a lot fun so far and would hate to see it all ruined by it cracking and destroying what is likely to be a great quality "instrument". I found a new passion in playing the didge and I reckon I may have found another in making them.

Anywayz I look forward to some more suggestions. Cheers fellas.

Vautex,
if your main aim is to stabilise the timber then you may want to think about using a 2 pack epoxy wood preserver, either Wattyl wood preserver or Epicraft. These are both very thin 2 pack epoxy products extensively used in boat building to protect timber. You keep applying it until the timber won't soak up any more. Once you've applied it though you are limited in the finishes you can apply over it as not everything will stick to it. Usually they're top coated with 2 pack epoxy or polyurethane paints or clear finishes.

Mick

Thanx Mick. Sounds good but expensive in the long run.

What are your thoughts on something as simple as a waterbased urethane such as cabots crystal clear or wattyl's estapol gloss floor finish. This is FOR THE INSIDE ONLY as I can treat the outside with shellac or danish oil or something.

Will a couple of coats of that inside it do the trick you reckon. Its only, what, $15 or so roughly each. 2 packs tend to be quite dear ive found and I would like to keep it NON-TOXIC.
A couple of people from the "old school" reckon drowing it in linseed possibly with kero in it. Im not so sure though and reckon itll stink too much.

Anyway Im leaning towards the water based poly stuff for the inside at the moment unless anyone can tell me why I really shouldnt do it.

Cheers

Vautex,
general rule with timber is if you want it to be stable then treat both sides of a piece the same to equalise moisture uptake or loss. If you treat the inside with one finish and the outside with another then they will behave differently to moisture changes, possibly with disastrous consequences. While the two pack finishes smell pretty nasty when you apply them they are inert once set and possibly safer than your proposed water based urethane.

Mick

Bloody hell, thanks Mick. Cant believe I didnt think of that. Excellent point.

The number one priority is the sound quality and performance and being able to maintain that. Looks really do come second. If it looks too good Ill never want to take it anywhere which kinda defeats the whole purpose. A 2 pack epoxy, which I was trying to avoid, really is sounding like the way to go.

I was initially worried about cost but have finally realised that a one off job with epoxy will be cheaper and easier in the long run than an oil product which will require continuous oiling.

How does the Estapol 7008 or envirotex product sound. Will these be addequate in your opinion? The envirotex has no reducer but the Wattyl does which you buy separately, is it needed.

What should I look out for and how do I go about applying this finish when the didge is standing up? Im thinking that if the consistancy is wrong Ill have problems with the inside especially.

Anyway, I reckon I am finally at a stage where I can make a decision and get this job done finally :)

Cheers once again. This forums been great.

Thought I might just wade in here for a few seconds. Personally I reckon you're barking up the wrong tree. (No pun intended)

Firstly it is pretty unlikely that your didge will split up as you have basically taken the centre out of a limb and relieved the timber from any of the stresses that make it split.

Secondly many of the finishes, especially the oils would end up making you feel a bit sick, especially as you will be constantly breathing in the fumes whilst you are playing the instrument. Some of the oils have fumes that will last for years, especially tung oil and Organoil.

I think you may find the traditional finish (if any) is emu fat or oil with a beeswax mouthpiece. The moisture you put into the piece from your breath will not make it split but will help to keep it in good condition and eventually give it a better sound. Most woodwind instruments (to my knowlege) are raw timber in the inside and only become better in the sound department as they are continually played.

Finally. Why on earth would you want to coat it inside and out with a plastic finish. You could have gone out and purchased a bit of plastic water pipe and saved yourself hours and hours of work.

Not trying to be a smart ****. Just practical.

Cheers - Neil :)

PS if you really must put something on it then a couple of coats of white shellac on the outside with a bit of good wax over the top should bo nicely. Unless you can get your hands on some Emu fat, or oil. Personally I'd stick with the shellac.

I liked Neil's post. Heres my two cents worth, you can make the digerdoo totally inert to moisture, with the caveat of making it more dense and inflexible.

Find a large sealable tub and a cold room to put it in. Place the Didge in it and cover with 10% metho 90% water for 1 wk, drain off and replace with 20% metho again for a week. Keep going in 10% increments untill you hit 100%. Dehydrate an appropriate amount of 100% meths with anhydrous magnesium sulphate (or molecular sieves) and again flood the didge for a week. Dilute LR White epoxy resin or other THERMO set epoxy to 50% with more dry metho cover the didge and let sit for two days, cover the didge in undiluted LR White and let sit for a couple of days. Drain off excess and place in a 65degree oven for 24hrs.

Voila one completely preserved stable piece of wood, it would probably play like and would smell funny for a long time but it would work. This is a variation of the process that resulted in Scrimber only they used vacuum to get the resin into the broken down fibres.

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Originally Posted by ubeaut

Most woodwind instruments (to my knowlege) are raw timber in the inside and only become better in the sound department as they are continually played.

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True. Being a recorder player myself and owning a number of wooden recorders, these come in two varieties: Cheaper versions are often made from maple which is first vacuum impregnated with wax and then turned, to end up with an instrument which is essentially impervious to breath-borne water. However, even these instruments have to be "played in" over a period of some months, slowly increasing the playing time each day as the wood absorbs moisture and reaches a stable point.

More expensive recorders are raw on the inside, and while also requiring "playing in", also have to be OILED regularly on the inside to keep the timber in top condition (ie water-resistant), in whole again due to the breath-borne water vapour. The idea is to get the timber to a stable point and keep it that way. Oiling it brings the timber to a condition where water neither moves in or out of the wood fast enough to be a problem. Oiling also is dead easy - the idea of regular re-oiling is a pleasurable job for me. As for tung vapours - well to each his own, it smells very pleasant to me.

But then again, a recorder is a precision instrument with tenons which can easily crack, while a didge is a course wooden pipe with no tenons (but also requiring great skill to be played, of course).

Perhaps emu oil would be best traditionally speaking, but it does bring out the question of why these were traditionally oiled in the first place? I think maybe for water reasons?

OK, I woke up this morning and found I hadnt easily decided after all. I just cant bear to coat it in plastic. My other one is only coz it got a crack it and the guys said they would fix it and well, thats how they did it. I dont mind it so much.

Neil thankx for sharing. Ive done a bit a searching around here and your opions tend to carry some weight. I will say though it sounds nothing like plastic even with the epoxy. It is still very rough inside in terms of contours. It just sounds a lille cleaner and refined than before.

I wasnt after a "Traditional finish" but a "natural looking" one. That is one that will bring out the grain and depth. Im also glad you mentioned shellac coz I really like the idea but nearly every one has talked me out of it. They tell me its too brittle, too this, too that, and dont bother.

Well then if aint moisture, I dont know is making them crack, but they cracking all over the work. Like I said, Ive done a fair bit of reading around about the didge and cracking is a very common occurunce. Only after my first one cracked did I read that they should be "broken in" like Jur said. The first site I came across when looking at other instruments that need oiling was a site on recorder.

Ive also read that a lot of other people use tung oil in their didge. Some swear by, others say itll help crack it up but I havent yet heard it making anyone ill, which is funny coz I was with you Neil in terms of thinking that.

Just though id mention that walls of this thing really are about 5mm in places. I was thinking of having shellac on inside and out. Also, if I used a hard or white shellac on the outside only, will it be enough to resist the lesser presures of a hollowed bit of wood from cracking. Oh and dont just say yes just to make me happy :)

Just before I go, the crack that appeared in my first didge started 20cm down from the mouthpiece and is about 20cm long. This, to me, has got to do with the heat and moisture from your breath, as most cracks I heard of also occur near the mouthpiece.

Thanx again everyone, and Neil, for reviving my original thoughts on shellac. Where can I get a white or hard shellac from here in WA. I did find some blond flakes at timbecon for $45 for 500g.

This emotional tug of war is killing me and my poor didge is caught in middle waiting to be finnished and played :)

This subject is nothing I'm experienced in (I can't even play a harmonica). However, I have worked a fair bit with splitting wood - Jarrah, Marri, Sheoak, Blackbutt. Both as boards and slabs re cabinets & tabletops. Where I have splits that I want to "fix", I fill them with a 2 pack epoxy resin, either clear or coloured to suit the wood (with colouring oxides. There are resins of differing consistency for different jobs. Some are very runny - which is OK if you want to fill a large crack or hole. Some are very viscous. Which are best for vertical surfaces or if you want to work it in but not see it drain away.

In your case, I would recommend CONGLUE. It works to a very smooth but viscous paste which you could work into your split. After a day it's rock hard and you just sand it back. If you colour it right, you wont even see it as a split. AND (the best part) I've noticed that after "plugging" the split this way, the wood generally stops splitting - at least in that location! Although I usually go on and seal the furniture with lacquer or Danish/polyurethane - so maybe if it was left unfinished it would just keep slitting? However - I've fixed cracks & splits in boards this way, that I then decided against using - and come back to it years later - and the split is still closed.

You can buy CONGLUE from Hobbywoods at Home Base in Subiaco. Speak to Bruce. He's fairly knowledgeable (if that's how you spell it?)

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Originally Posted by Richardwoodhead

..... Speak to Bruce. He's fairly knowledgeable (if that's how you spell it?)

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Yeh I checked, that's how you spell Bruce. :D

Cheers Richard thatll come in handy if I do end up with crack. The didge in question doesnt have one yet and so Im trying to find some measures of preventing it from happening.

The problem is I cant decide which finish to use, especially when Im not very knowledgeable on the subject (if thats how you spell it)


......yes Outback I know subject is spelt right.

Dewaxed White Shellac is available in Perth at Timbecon and Carba-Tec.

Maybe I'm completely wrong here but my thinking is that you don't get cracking from putting moisture into the wood. It is from taking it out. The ends of the didge and any other limb type of wood will always be where the splitting starts. If the end is sealed with beeswax or similar then it is more than likely the splits will start a little further down the limb.

Personally I'd let it do its own thing and split if it is going to. Then fill the splits with a resin at a later date. This way all or most of the stress would come out of the timber as nature intended and you shouldn't get any nasty little surprises down the track.

Maybe seal the outside with the shellac and wax to protect it a bit and leave the inside unsealed to allow the timber to do its own thing. Your other option might be to go down the other traditional track and paint the outside.

Cheers - Neil :D

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Originally Posted by outback

Yeh I checked, that's how you spell Bruce. :D

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Outback is not only a woodwrecker but also the board's spell checker. :D :D :p

Peter.

I reckon you are probably right Neil in regards to the lack of moisture causing the cracking. I guess thats why old wood cracks as it breaks down and becomes dry. Its just figured that slight moisture going back in might cause it to expand enough to crack, probably in an area that was likely to crack or is weak anyway. The first didge that cracked did so in a spot that was visibly shaped too thin compared to the rest, you could actually see a concave profile.

Now that Ive put a lot of work into it in terms of chiseling and sanding Ive actually found I really like the natural wood feel over the poly finish on my other didge. I cannot explain it, it just feels and looks right. I even contemplated leaving entirely as it was except for sanding. The reason I didnt is that I read too many times about other didges cracking and that the cause is the moisture from your breath etc. I am starting to think that this is mostly due people not breaking in their didges. Three times last night I read about whose didges cracked in the first week, I think that says a lot. Another story was an old didge that cracked but only after experimenting with water in the bore, like the traditional Arnhem Land people did. In other words it all about extremes and sudden changes.

Thanks Neil. Your proposal is what my original intentions were. I was keen to use shellac on the outside (and maybe inside but probably not so as to save it). Its seems I was led down the garden poly path for a while there hehe :)

One final thing is your thoughts on hard shellac and its availability here. Im not sure Timbecon has it. Or should I just stick to your premixed white shellac?

Cheers Everyone.

Vautex
I'm not pushing the epoxy line over any others, after all I'm a carpenter/joiner, not a polisher or finisher. If you do decide to use epoxy though, go for an epoxy wood preserver (as mentioned previously) rather then a 2 pack finish. I think you'll find the preserver to be cheaper and it doesn't end up looking like a shiny finish. Because it's so thin it soaks right in and ends up looking more like a satin oil finish. It will smell awful while it's setting up but once fully cured is inert. The Epicraft Everdure smells a lot nicer than the Wattyl timber preserver (but is more expensive). Decisions, decisions!

Mick

Thats cool Mick. I dont hate it with a passion or anything, like I said, my first didge is covered in it and its awesome. When I first saw it I thought it was just wicked and most of the people in the store wanted one just like it.

In fact, one guy I listen to called Mark Hoffmann has his didges made buy a guy called Bob Druett and his didges are coated inside and out with something shiny too that Im sure is epoxy. When I met Mark and showed him my didge he actually thought it was one of Bob's Didges, so for this reason I reckon he must use some sort of epoxy too.

I did seriously consider it for a while but considered it to be too expensive an experiment considering the somewhat permanant consequences. Having never used it before put me off a bit, plus I live in a unit which makes things a bit awkward. I figured shellac to be a cheaper option that I reckon looks **** hot too. It may not have the durability but then its easily repaired and Im only blowin in it after all. I also read its actually used on the ends of logs to help them season, so if its good enough for that it may just have the strength to stop a didge from splitting.

I reckon epoxy has its place though. If I ever decide to make a didge by splitting a log, hollowing both halves, then join it back together, I will surely use epoxy in this instance.
Im getting a lot out of the different opions. Cheers people.

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Originally Posted by Sturdee

Outback is not only a woodwrecker but also the board's spell checker. :D :D :p

Peter.

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Without starting the whole spelling nazi thing again, I think you'll find its " spell checkererer" :D

Or Spell chucka??