# Why So Long for Wood to Sink?



## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

Boil first. Keep it in warm water weighed down by rocks. It should sink in less than a week. If not, it may take much longer as some wood just wants to float forever it seems. In those cases, attaching to eggcrate or slate may be the best option. 

What kind of wood? Malaysian, Spiderwood, etc.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

There may be some ways to "speed" wood soaking but the term is a relative thing and we need to look at what nature calls "speed". Wood floats until water penetrates to replace the air in each of the tiny cells in the tree. Those cells extend all the way from the surface to the center of each piece of wood and the first layer has to fill before the second, third and so on get exposed to the water. So if it takes a day for water to penetrate the first layer, how many cells and days does it take to soak into a four inch thick log? Nature takes several years to do it! 
Keep in mind that nature does not deal in years but thinks of a thousand years as being pretty quick? 
I do not have the time nor patience to wait for natural processes to work. That leaves me to invent so other way to get the job done like attaching the wood to soft tile. I can trip to the store, buy the tile and drill it in under a day so that better fits my "human" need for speed. 
I only have a limited number of years to get this living thing done while I find nature has a different schedule.


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## k2focus (Mar 9, 2018)

madcrafted said:


> Boil first. Keep it in warm water weighed down by rocks. It should sink in less than a week. If not, it may take much longer as some wood just wants to float forever it seems. In those cases, attaching to eggcrate or slate may be the best option.
> 
> What kind of wood? Malaysian, Spiderwood, etc.


not sure what type, but it's some sort of wood. it's not too big of dense, so I don't think it will take more than a week.

i'm just curious why it takes forever.

so boiling works?


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## Vriez (Mar 20, 2018)

A day? Ha... I've had a piece soaking for 5 weeks now and it's still as buoyant as Styrofoam


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## snyd_3982 (Mar 20, 2018)

I soaked a large peice of collected drift wood in a 50 gallon barrel for two months changing the water weekly to leach out the tannins. After 2 month I set the barrel over my fire pit and boiled it for 4 hrs. I repeat the process of water change then boiled again. After all this the wood still floated. After putting in my tank I weighted it down with a bag of gravel substrate. After month 4 it would still float...... My only solution was to drill holes in the back where it wasn't visiable to the front of my tank. I think that took out some of the heart wood that water wouldn't penetrate and removing some of its boyancy and allowing it to sink. It still has a bit of buoyancy but it fk ally stays down.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

I soak wood at 180 degrees with a plate or something heavy on top and they usually start to sink on their own after about two days. I use a Sous Vide cooker in an insulated cooler for heating the water and this works out great as it allows plenty of room to soak large pieces. I'll typically continue the process for a week to allow the tannin's to leach out.


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## Mike A. (Jan 6, 2018)

Vriez said:


> A day? Ha... I've had a piece soaking for 5 weeks now and it's still as buoyant as Styrofoam


I have big pieces in my pond that have been there for years that still partially float. And I pulled them out from around a lake where they were washed up and wet to begin with. lol Works in that case though since it gives the frogs and turtles places to hang out.


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## underH20garden (Dec 19, 2017)

I have some soaking for around a month I think they just started to sink. and there pretty small and an 1" to 1.5" around. 
I heard boiling does help but I have time as i am still piecing together my build. in fact i just went to collect some this afternoon and there pretty small so I might try to boil them and see..

good luck and as plant said nature is on its own time line.

Bump:


Ken Keating1 said:


> I soak wood at 180 degrees with a plate or something heavy on top and they usually start to sink on their own after about two days. I use a Sous Vide cooker in an insulated cooler for heating the water and this works out great as it allows plenty of room to soak large pieces. I'll typically continue the process for a week to allow the tannin's to leach out.


do you have a pic of your set up? and tell us more about it?? sounds pretty bad A$$ :surprise:


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Some thought on why/how boiling can help may make sense of it. 
Wood is all made of tiny little cells of cellulose. Think of tiny little balloons? When wood is fresh and growing those spaces are full of sap/ moisture/tannin or whatever we want to call it. We can put the wood in when it is green and maybe have to wait for the tannins to clear or we can get dry wood and let nature do the work of breaking down those little cells to replace the moisture with air. That is how when we can feel the difference in weight of dry wood versus green. So it works in reverse when we want the wood heavy/wet enough to sink. We have to give time for liquid to replace the lighter material that is there. I might think of it as a ship full of tiny little rooms and each room has to fill before the next room begins to get wet? Only we have tens of thousands of those tiny little rooms and it takes a while. If we boil the wood long enough and hot enough, it can cause some of those rooms to break down and the water does get there quicker. 
So the choices seem to be ?
Use wet green wood and live with clearing the tannins. 
Boil till we are blue and it can help and it may be worthwhile on the tiny stuff that will fit in a pot. 
Or we can collect the dry wood and deal with making it sink. Drilling and cutting to remove a lot of the inside wood is one way to deal with reducing the bulk and replacing that inner portion with something heavy like rock or sand can speed it up a whole bunch. 
So we get to choose our poison as nature certainly is not going to change her methods just for our convenience!
I get the feeling she might be more inclined to do away with most of us! 
:grin2:


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