Ammoniated water

[markjay]

Can someone fill me in on this. I was reading that brushing a little ammoniated water on wood and placing it between glass and weighting it down. May take or help take warp out of sheet wood. I'm sure we have all run into this problem at one time or another with material for keels, etc.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

[druxey]

Well, ammonia will make your eyes water, for sure. Water alone does the same thing, really. One can steam wood to shape as well. Damp bending and applying dry heat (a temperature controlled iron) will also work. However, with thicker pieces of wood, wood will tend to revert to where it wants to go.

[Jaager]

One of the components of wood is glue-like and binding = lignin.  Its binding properties can be weakened and allow wood to be bent by liquid ammonia.  This is not household ammonia.  It is anhydrous ammonia - an industrial chemical that is dangerous, reactive and explosive.  I vaguely remember an ice plant used liquid ammonia as a refrigerant exploded and became a fire in downtown Richmond when I was a kid . 

The part of household ammonia that aids in wood bending is water.  Using water alone will do the same thing.

[jud]

Anhydrous Ammonia is stored under pressure because it is gaseous at atmospheric pressure, containers may burst, but by itself will not explode. Years ago Aqua Ammonia was used for fertilizer and other things, went out of favor for farm use because of the mass. The last Ammonia I bought was in a liquid form, not under pressure and came in gallon plastic jugs, 4 to a case which was the minimum you could purchase and have shipped as hazardous material, that freight cost about 5 times more than the case of ammonia did. Needed it as a developer for my blue print machine, still have 2 unopened jugs left. Ammonia regardless of form is not an explosive or fire hazard but it can hurt or kill you if precautions are not taken, it displaces air and will form a cloud that burns your eyes and leaves you with no air to breath, the Aqua you can just move away from unless a lot is atomized quickly, the Anhydrous, being under pressure until released can burn you, 'actually frost bite', burn your lungs and eyes as well as displace your air. Every applicator I have been around is equipped with an emergency water eye rinse. Have used ag applicators to inject a lot of it into the soil as fertilizer, turns into nitrogen in the soil which can be made to explode in some forms but not in the soil as used for fertilizer. Those machines have a lanyard and valve used to pre-charge the system so skips aren't made when first starting from a stop, if not careful using it, you quickly learn about overdoing it as well as to keep the machine down wind if you can. If you need a small bit of ammonia, might try peeing on your board.

jud

Edited April 30, 2016 by jud

[Dwaing]

I think what you need is a surfactant to make the water wetter so it penetrates more deeply into the wood (xylem cells). I use a common household product call "clean shower" as a 1:10 solution dissolved in distilled water.

[markjay]

Thanks guys, you have given me the answers that I needed. Jud your answer was really good.