Making bulletproof wood

[@chaschuky999]

RIP the dream of Nigel owning a “nugsmasher pro” would’ve been a truly legendary piece of lab equipment.

[@average_super_jew1234]

I was thinking the same thing 😂😂😂

[@EddieBurke]

lol if he smoked he could get good use out of it, too bad it was aluminum since it was cheaper than the other option.

[@doughnut1107]

He has a Nugsmasher Ultra. More power, more pressure, more nug smashing!

[@dwp8200]

Wewd!! ❤

[@-dystopic-]

I really want one so it would have been cool to see one in use!

[@timothygregg8504]

Hey Nile! I used to work as a Materials Engineer in body armor manufacturing, and what you've experimentally found are some of the core principles of the materials science behind high-performance ballistic armor! Towards the end you mention that you could likely make something half the thickness and still stop a 9mm; take a look at the construction of NIJ level II or level IIIA soft armors: what you'll find is that they are *remarkably* thin. Turns out, high tensile strength is pretty much the number one reason that poly-aramids (Kevlar and the like) are such great armor materials. What I think your pressed-wood plates would serve a better function as is as an up-armor for level II or level IIIA soft armors. This is usually done with a ceramic plate that provides the compressive strength to the initial impact zone that the fibrous soft armor is able to absorb as tensile load, but the densified wood could serve as a great substitute! If you want to get really deep into the armor classification side of things, you can also take a look at "back-face deformation" tests that are done to classify/test armors. Drop me an email if you'd like and I can answer any questions! I'm not in the armor space any more but I have a ton of knowledge built up from the time when I was, and I would love to put it to good use somewhere :P Edit: Someone made the great point that my email isn't super obviously available; it's on my channel (or here: [e-mail]) if anyone wants to reach out. I can't promise a prompt response, but I'll try! Also someone pointed out I should have said "Level IIIA soft armor" not "Level III", thanks for the correction, I've edited above!

[@DSlyde]

Ever thought of making a few videos yourself? I'd love Armor Material Science 101

[@gertrude1585]

great explanation, but i never trought i would see a body armor expert in a chemistry video comment section XD. anyway, have a wonderful day

[@johan0220]

cool

[@dakotareid1566]

Make your own videos on armour

[@MrSonnyfy]

​@@DSlydeagreed

[@lewistaylor863]

If you fancy revisiting this, try carrying out the first chemical wash step under vacuum. The wood contains lots of air, and the presence of the air within the cells prevents the chemicals penetrating through the whole cross section of the piece (thats why the centre looked dry). When pulling a vacuum, most of that air is removed. The vacuum can then be realased forcing the chemicals deep into the piece. In order to remove the chemicals, you can then place the treated piece under vacuum again to help draw out excess chemicals before washing. This is basically how they pressure treat timber with wood preservatives.

[@GlazeonthewickeR]

You explained this so well that I feel smarter now, even though I know I’m not

[@sachiko6530]

yeah I thought the same, vacuum would help to make the chemicals penetrate fully, also help when drying too

[@dereks1743]

This is the way

[@pingugames9942]

@@GlazeonthewickeR you're better than that!

[@nahusomega1007]

i was about to comment that in a less well explained way... i like watching videos where mashmallows go brrrr under vaccum, yup

[@mpb_rip]

As a carpenter from Germany, I appreciate the detailed look into wood hardening here. Wood swells differently in each direction-tangential, radial, and longitudinal-so pressing it causes more expansion at the sides. For instance, Fichte (spruce) swells 0.33 tangentially, 0.16 radially, and only 0.01 longitudinally, which is why pressing has little effect longitudinally but shows more tangentially and radially. This compresses the spaces between fibers and increases hardness. When you mention the unpredictability of size after treatment, it makes sense since it depends on where the wood was cut from the log. Pieces closer to the center respond differently compared to those from the edges due to the varied structure across the log. A recommendation: using thinner wood, around 5-10mm thick, could improve the process. After pressing, this would yield hardened sheets around 0.5-1mm thick, which is similar to what’s used in multiplex wood. By layering these, you could create a hardened multiplex with increased strength without excessive thickness. Additionally, I’d suggest avoiding U-shaped grain patterns in planks, as seen in the video. This grain orientation can introduce internal stress because, as the wood dries, the grain tends to flatten. That’s one reason why round cross-sections of logs often split horizontally-they relieve internal stress as they dry. Thanks for sharing this process!

[@spark_matter]

I would be so curious to see what an ultrathin plywood made out of this stuff would be like!

[@pace_18]

He started this project almost 4 years ago! That's insane. People underestimate how long these chemistry videos take

[@MusicAddictMAD]

It’s what makes me truly appreciate his videos when they come out because they are years of work just for internet strangers, but because he is passionate about his subject the videos are always amazing.

[@KakavashaForever]

This was just barely a chemistry video honestly.

[@dyvdwastaken]

@@KakavashaForever this guy probably dont even know was dihydrogen monoxide is, and thinks NaCl is a dangerous chemical

[@jimmykrochmalska3501]

@@KakavashaForever all in all you gotta appreciate the effort

[@klausklebbi3772]

@@dyvdwastakenYou don‘t need to go around telling people you have a small penis

[@AidanXavier1]

I love that we get sentences like "It hit me in the head and I was genuinely really surprised" in the classic Nile Red monotone.

[@blasttyrant3228]

Timestamp?

[@neogmz]

@@blasttyrant3228 29:59

[@johnsmith-jq1uc]

do you think we can get him to send these to demolitionranch?

[@june_buggi3]

As well as “i then got rid of the gun I probably shouldn’t have been running with” That made me lose it 😭😭

[@MrFailman552]

My favorite is "And again, after fifteen hours of work, I was left with a wet block of wood." at 25:08 I don't know why it cracks me up so much lmao

[@leojennings2438]

Nile: *spends $5000 on a press* Also Nile: "WE GOT PINE BECAUSE IT WAS THE CHEAPEST"

[@plot00pium]

he didnt have money left to buy anything else than pine lmao

[@crazynthree]

Haha. Someone get this man a bottle of titebond

[@Sepi-chu_loves_moths]

Dont forget the US$1,556.37 at 33:52

[@Nadiki]

He’s gotta save money _somewhere_

[@CubeNinja07]

You gotta realize that they could sell or use that machine in the future, aswell as the fact that they were buying the actual machine for more money than the material because they wanted to proove that even the bad wood could turn bulletproof

[@Tharushi_SM]

I was using this as an ASMR while I was studying. And while I was spacing out a bit I heard you saying some pressing machine was almost thirty six thousand dollars. Bro I was horrified. Almost depressed for half a minute, until I saw the price again. Thank you for the great content.

[@jesuslovesyou83558]

Jesus Christ loves you so much pls repent from your sins and have faith and believe in Jesus because Jesus is the way the truth and the life Jesus died for you and rose from the dead for you

[@colbypupgaming1962]

The price for such a machine is indeed imPRESSive, but then again Nile has "rent an island for mad scientist purposes" money....

[@nexdemise4182]

So here's the thing. This is something you will see with weaves like carbon fiber or kevlar where a single layer will splinter, a double perpendicular will hold. You could significantly improve this by using thinner pieces and just stacking a bunch of them together because the impact has to keep changing direction instead of just cleaving through lines that line up behind it. So if you ever want to revisit this project, take a bunch of thin boards (the thinner the better, like you can break it by looking at it wrong thin), treat them all, stack them in your press going horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical, squish them all together, cook them, and try shooting it. Squish them all together to basically make them stick together on force alone. L3 plates are like 1.5 inch thick which is basically what you should be aiming for as the higher bound on thickness, and who knows, maybe it'll work. Another thing you should do with the bigger blocks you've treated is to take a hammer and chisel and break one of them apart before crush/cook (or you can shoot it with your pellet gun to make a hole down) and see if it's actually wet inside, there's a lot of different non-water liquids that can still stay behind in wood and judging from the dark color you might've been pushing out resin especially in pine that's known for holding a lot of it and crackling in fire because of it. If that's the case you didn't really have treated wood, you just had a weird hotpocket of treated wood with filling of compressed wood.

[@ruolbu]

hotpocket of treated wood Man you got ways of putting it. I agree with your suggestions though. This is really interesting to me and I would love a revisit.

[@Lasershark666]

Underrated comment, honestly best advice I’ve ever seen in a KZbin comment

[@GayHorse69]

This shit would work. It’s straight up what he’s doing but using the logic of grapheme and Kevlar as your discussed. The layers splintering and dispersing the weight evenly. W comment

[@ascendantindigo271]

I think the problem is he's not heating/cooking it while compressing it.

[@ians5337]

Perhaps taking several of these panels made as you described, and stacking them with an elastic contact cement. Spread the energy out further with the same principal as ballistic glass

[@MikeT]

I saw the inside of the wood being dry from the start of the video. I do a lot of woodworking and have stabilized wood before which is kind of the same concept of what you were trying to do. You have to completely submerge the wood and pull a vacuum until it stops bubbling, then let it sit still submerged so the liquid can replace where the air came from in the wood.

[@fakinyamo]

Indeed. Probably he would have ended with a much stronger single piece of wood if he had applied vacuum.

[@frankthechemist]

Came to say that exact same thing. I would even go further and suggest to do a few cycles of vacuum to atmospheric pressure, or even higher pressure if possible. Considering that the timing of the reaction is important in order not to remove too much lignin, it is important to get the caustic soda and sulfites inside as fast as possible. Same thing for the rinsing afterwards.

[@StoneAndersonStudio]

I was going to leave this comment, with the caveat that pulling a vacuum on it will make the water boil, and having a solution of boiling sodium hydroxide under vacuum might be a little dangerous/impossible depending on the kind of vacuum pump.

[@alextoppen]

What about pulling a vacuum through the end grain to draw the chemical bath through the wood continuously.

[@downstream0114]

I was thinking thinner plates of wood.

[@mercylessplayer]

Code Buullet doing literally anything besides being productive is hilarious to me, love the vibes of that man

[@NbNgMOD]

Litterly no one asked about cb: never mind didnt watch the video fully sorry

[@Rev_Erser]

does he show up at all i'm only 22 minutes in @@NbNgMOD

[@Teh_Random_Canadian]

I am absolutely shocked Code Bullet was in this video lol, how TF did that even happen lol

[@Rev_Erser]

40:17 there he is!

[@Rev_Erser]

ok anyways shut up this is a public comment section@@NbNgMOD

[@robertbraun7155]

I love that you document the failure process as you move along. The failure is what teaches.

[@skilletborne]

Considering the dry center and how much difference stacking in layers makes, I really would like to see this done with thinner wood You'd be shocked at the performance I think half the thickness but in 5 layers rather than 3 would give

[@skydragon5671]

Oh yes I was thinking about that in the first half of the video as he used these thick wood sheets

[@lewisheard1882]

Exactly my thoughts. If he crushed them all together he might not even need glue

[@KaneCold]

Maybe it would be better to use circular pieces, so you can give each layer a slightly different angle to diverse the orientation of the fibers.

[@DCMAKER133]

smaller thinner layers most likely will provide worse results because it takes less strain to break a single thin layer thus as each layer breaks the entire thing looses its overall strength. The weakest link type of problem. This is easily seen in body armor. A single plate will greatly out perform multiple weaker plates. EDIT: With 1 possible exception of changing the angle/direction of grains/threads. Now if that was possible on a flush/fused layering that would would be drastically better than having independent boards like in video. Having multiple boards going same direction though would be worse than a single sheet. So having varying angles of grains/threads as a single board is better than multiple boards obviously.

[@Mind_Idiot]

​@@KaneCold yeah dude, wait yeah do you think there's an optimal way to do that? just rotate 90 degrees every slice? take 360 degrees and split it evenly amongst the layers? Something else? I'm not an engineer, i don't know shit.

[@lucam8758]

I'm happy you tested a control experiment with normal wood, it really puts the strength of dense wood into perspective

[@dieSpinnt]

There was a wrong assumption from the beginning on (several times mentioned, like after 24:00 ): "Not hard enough", "Hardness", etc. This feature does NOT stop bullets. The ability to completely take up an IMPULSE force and to equalize it over a big area, in contrast does.

[@lucam8758]

@@dieSpinnt correct me if I'm wrong: a very hard material could be brittle and be unable to stop a bullet, right?

[@DNVIC]

​@@dieSpinnt Webster definition of the word hard: "not easily penetrated : not easily yielding to pressure" I'd say hardness is a fine word to use here. Hard itself is a fairly vague word, and stuff that's hard on for example the Moh's scale might not be hard when judged by a different metric. Given the definition for the word hard says "Not easily penetrated" and he's testing to see if a bullet can penetrate it, I don't see any problem with using the word hard or hardness to describe the situation.

[@sundown6806]

@@lucam8758 The material you're describing is pretty much glass, and it has to be heavily reinforced to be able to stop bullets

[@timothymiller6426]

An hr long NileRed video? Best Halloween ever.

[@wagnerramosmidichannelabso514]

[insert blank comment here]

[@J.Lassalle]

Yup😊

[@vinvin_2lit]

@@wagnerramosmidichannelabso514shut up NERD

[@lachlanbrown3112]

It's not Halloween for me

[@welltoastybread8838]

Um technically it’s 59:37 ☝️🤓

[@HeyItsJayIRL]

41:48 Okay, but the fact that was just your second time shooting the gun and your aim was THAT good is impressive.

[@cannaisuer2091]

A 22 is barely a gun. If you cant aim a 22 you shouldnt even own a damn bb gun

[@juu0n]

@@cannaisuer2091 let him have his moment 😔

[@CameronLarson330]

It’s also worth noting that you shot the wood with a 9mm PCC witch has a significantly longer barrel than a handgun, meaning that it had a lot more energy than a handgun. You did better than you thought. 👍🏻

[@bradleysmith9431]

Yep, 9mm out of a 16" barrel gives the 9mm as much knock down power as a .357 mag. The longer barrel drastically increases the speed of the projectile

[@Lumens1]

@@bradleysmith9431omg knock down power hahahaha. That fake term is still being thrown around? Is this 2005?

[@DashsChannel]

At first my brain couldn't wrap around the idea that a longer barrel would give the bullet more energy, since it's the same amount of energy being put into the bullet. But then I realized a longer barrel means more time for the propellant gases to expand and impart their kinetic energy to the bullet.

[@CameronLarson330]

@@DashsChannel Exaxtly right, and that’s the appeal of PCCs. It allows you to get a full powder burn and utilize all that the round have to offer.

[@Epsilon2042]

​@@Lumens1haha lol, everybody is ignoring you 🤣

[@shaurmiath6719]

My favorite thing about your channel is that you show and discuss your failures. I think a lot of our society is geared towards avoiding failure or even mention of it, and that's a shame. Failure is an extremely important part of science, and life as a whole. Often, an important part of finding out what works involves finding out what doesn't work. You can't learn from your mistakes if you don't think about them and try to improve your process, and from a viewer's perspective, it makes it much more satisfying to see you succeed when we see how many times you tried things that didn't work like you expected. I appreciate that.

[@Noober_king]

Sorry but i aint. Reading. Allat.

[@camonangeland676]

@@Noober_kingYimzzz

[@genius171]

ong

[@Everythingz127]

​@@Noober_kingdon't worry your low attention span is just what you should work on. You got this babe

[@ManHeadRambo]

Well said

[@Eihei]

I can't believe this video was almost 1 hour long. It felt like 15-20 minutes. Never felt bored at any point.

[@peterobinson3678]

I dunno... there was the 15 mins i was , like, 'put 2 at 90 degrees opposition!'...

[@jbjb679]

​@@peterobinson3678cool

[@lemonke8132]

@@peterobinson3678 the whole time i was pissed cuz he would let it boil overnight where the psi dropped to 0. Obviously that means water left gaps and there's more room to squish it...

[@elwynalderman3356]

@@lemonke8132pfp says it all

[@mrmaxboypvp5097]

Wait wait wait, is NO ONE gonna talk about how it says HIS HEIGHT IS 249 CM in the shooting license!! THATS LIKE 8 FOOT!!

[@Will_S_White]

that dude is as tall as a fucking building

[@mastrorick]

He can dunk on Shaq

[@Rakeslayr]

@@mastrorickdamn, but dunking on the 45-50 yo guy is brutal tho

[@jmcginty96]

Yeah along with the 9/9/99 birthdate and “sepia” eye color 😂 he’s a fruit fly

[@Supermario64fangd]

cm is short for Canadian meter and there are quite a few comments talking about it

[@miomip]

Finally, we know what Code Bullet has been doing, shooting wood in the woods with Nilered.

[@justsomekidthatsinfinitely7090]

This is somehow weirder the further it goes on

[@watch_nana]

Now we know why he never uploads. He's just too busy helping Nigel test how hard his wood is.

[@j.m.ematthijsse6251]

Together with Emplemon and Barely sociable

[@satiric_]

Code Bullet, now with real bullets.

[@enkays_den]

I am not familiar, but looking at their gaming channel, I presume this is a joke because their name has bullet in it. I will return if an actual gamer appears in the video to shoot the wood.

[@spudhead169]

You used a 9x19 carbine. The longer barrel will allow the bullet more velocity than a pistol, so the wood stopping it was even more impressive seeing as most armor ratings for 9x19 is based on hand-gun velocities.

[@mistyslee7962]

exactly i was thinking that so even tho the first time he used a gun it blowed the back it actually didnt do so bad because its not a hand gun or a small gun

[@Calysto929]

I think he should try 5x thinner layers and go 10x layers and laminate them similar to Kevlar.

[@SirBilliam96]

I was going to say the same thing! So he stopped a 9mm at what is basically the maximum energy (or penetrating power if you prefer) that you can expect out of the caliber. Very impressive!

[@eyesonthekingdom]

you'd think it would but longer doesnt always mean better.. in fact the 9x39 mm optimal barrel length is around 7 1/2 in. anything more you start to lose velocity to friction on the barrel rifling due to the gunpowder being used up prior to bullet leaving barrel

[@sat_homeless]

Yeah I was gonna mention that. I was really surprised.

[@theflyingwhale5778]

I just want to thank you for not cutting the failed experiments, all of them are genuinely interesting to watch

[@ZorakiSassan]

Yeah seeing all the steps and reasoning after each successful or unsuccessful experiment is the best part

[@releasehalflife3]

frfr

[@harpintn]

Failure and trying something else is a big part of science.

[@Kauppamopo]

its a hook to keep you watching

[@puggles5744]

What I really like about this channel is that you don't only just display you successful attempts. But the progress and failed attempts that brought you to your final conclusion. Its entertaining and scientific about it.

[@arrrghr]

The only KZbinr who can make an hour feel like five minutes. Thank you Nigel for the awesome and engaging content.

[@TylerMusgrave9]

Dang! I didn't even realize this was an hour-long video!

[@TecMlt]

Same here.

[@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy]

yes when I keep skiping it XD

[@BetoVickers]

I thought it was only 20 minutes.

[@RogerLiem]

don't forget Primitive Technology

[@rothandre6497]

Great video! Couple suggestions. Looks like you're not using fully cured wood. Meaning, the virgin wood still has a lot of moisture left in it, preventing the solution from fully saturating. A few things to try: fully cure the wood by kiln drying it, and testing with a moisture meter. Also, it might be helpful to submerge the wood, then apply a vacuum (to remove any air trapped from inside), THEN apply heat. Also, as someone else suggested, using thinner virgin wood then compressing the layers together in the press en mass, could potentially achieve a overall thinner product with the same (or similar) strength profile. Think hyper-dense plywood.

[@Impostleable]

100% this! The untreated bit in the middle was probably due to water not being displaced by the chemicals. Looking at the splintered wood it shows the inside is pale which implies untreated. Would be really interesting to see wood which was treated all the way through.

[@enque01]

Yeap! My thoughts too! Self-sabotage with too thick pieces. Except I don't think it was water in the middle - it was air! So a vacuum chamber would have solved it. But regardless, the chemical treating would be made much easier with thinner pieces. So prioritize thinner pieces over using a vacuum chamber. But there's another very important benefit too! Since the wood splits along the grain, alternating the grain directions results in the the force of the impact being spread over a much larger area. Since the bullet-stopping effect comes from how much area of the wood that is made to absorb the energy, having many thin layers of alternating directions should improve this material by several hundred percent!

[@Netherdan]

You already said everything I wanted, so have a like and a comment to bump it up

[@vjaceslavsavsjaniks6431]

Maybe saturating the wood totally in vacuum chamber

[@ikxalenull7]

in practical application, i feel like wood like this would be best used overtop of thin metal basically in the same was as ceramics.

[@karet2490]

i like how his script always makes him sound like hes reading off a chemistry procedure paper this will be the most thorough explanation of opening a box you will hear in your life

[@theshanamaster]

he shouldve used walnut, and along the grain, rather against the grain

[@jupiter_adept]

He has such a particular cadence to his speech; I feel like you could set your watch to his pauses and upward lilts

[@karet2490]

@@jupiter_adept his voice is so intriguing he made a video about it

[@pearlspearlspearIs]

@@karet2490what video?

[@karet2490]

@@pearlspearlspearIs I don't remember thr name

[@bushhippie7372]

I have that same Ruger 10/22 rifle. It’s three years older than me (manufactured 1986) and it still shoots like a champ. Cycles like a dream, never jams. They’re great little guns.

[@matejlaskomulej]

Amazing video, thank you. I can think of four suggestions to potentially enhance it. 1. Grain orientation The pine you used was from a younger tree or cut closer to the center of the tree. If you buy higher quality wood it should have all layers more parallel and straight. 2. Deeper penetration of chemicals While soaking the wood in the solution you could use your vacuum chamber. Then before repeating the same but with water, you would blow pressurised air to blow in the end grain to replace the solution with air (over a sink or preferably in the sanding chamber). 3. More but thinner layers Not accounting for any other factors but using 2 layers with perpendicular grain orientation being 5x stronger, extrapolates to 2.5x the strength when cutting a single piece in half (by height) and gluing back perpendicularly. In general using more thinner pieces is vastly better than a single piece of combined thickness. Coincidentally, this would also help with chemicals reaching all the way through. Also note why using 3 layers is so vastly superior to using only 2. It's because the thirds layer's orientation prevents the second layer exploding in the bullet direction. Hence the bullet expands and destroys only first layer which has the freedom to break towards the shooter. 4. Replacing water with epoxy I'm the least confident how the water would affect this one but here it goes. You should obviously keep repeating using water until satisfied, but before the big squeeze, you could blow the water out again with pressurised air and then back to the vacuum chamber with epoxy instead. You will end up destroying whatever container you use for this last step. You will also need to saw off the epoxy around the wood so it's best to pay a visit to a local woodworker. I'm also curious of - How the squished and dried wood layers would stick to one another without the glue? - What is the density of the finished product and how does it compare to current military standard vest inserts? Is it lighter? Even with epoxy? - If it would be optimal to use many many alternatingly perpendicular layer as close to thin as paper as possible? - Is alternatingly a word? I see an hour long video and think "no way am I gonna watch through it all", but you keep me glued to the phone and fill my head with answers to questions I never head and questions I might never get the answers to. For all your effort, thank you.

[@oriontherealironman]

I think a pressure chamber instead of vacuum would be more effective. It's not so much air that's the problem, it's the fibers in the wood. Or perhaps pulling a vacuum and then increasing the pressure would work best. Removing any possible air and then forcing the chemicals into the wood.

[@DisgrunteledDachshund]

@@oriontherealironman It seems like its a similar process to making stabilized wood, in which case you really do need a vacuum chamber, you pull the air with the vacuum chamber then when you release the vacuum its replaced with the chemicals

[@hhn2002]

the vacuum chamber would very much boil the chemical solution so that would not work.

[@benedict6962]

I think he should compress the pieces together instead of using glue. Will the heat chemically bind celulose from separate planks? That way, he can do a four or five layer block without being more glue than wood.

[@megahellreaper]

Man, now I'm scared he won't ever get back to this project. I'd be so disappointed.

[@SuperJoziBoy]

Thank you nile. Been a fan of you since I was a teen (16 or 17). Im 23 now. You ignited my love for chemistry. I love your content. Its a like a gift whenever you upload. Wish i had a friend like you!

[@-N0V4-]

Blood of my blood 🇿🇦

[@SuperJoziBoy]

He acknowledged me😁😁 Thanks Nile. Hope you have a great day.

[@SuperJoziBoy]

@@-N0V4- My fellow South African. Whoever you are, you are super cool if you're watching this video

[@notredonsnek]

As a woodworker, this is incredibly fascinating.

[@JJFX-]

The first thing I thought is I totally want to turn a cheap 2x4 into a fingerboard for a guitar. What's really interesting is the potential to mold the wood as it's formed. You could potentially compress scrap wood into 'hardwood' into a specific contour or add other features at the same time. Hell, I'm curious how it'd look if you just stuck a quarter under the wood in the press.

[@BobbyLovesOranges]

hmm, same, though of turning it into a pickaxe or something, would be kinda cool

[@emissaryofelohim1431]

Try it with Hemp. Henry Ford built a Hemp Composite bodied model-A and demonstrated its durability by shooting it with a .30 cal machine gun. After which, he walked up, wiped the powder burn and fragments off, and proclaimed, "See folks! Not a Dent! And hardly a Scratch!" But then Stanley steel, Standard oil, and Hurst timber, made sure ol Henry, "got with the program."...

[@emissaryofelohim1431]

#HempCrete #HempCeramics

[@emissaryofelohim1431]

I wonder what ol Henry's recipe was.

[@GilesCuckow]

Really cool. Experimented with a bulletproof shield and this opened up a lot of questions. I think it's clear from my experiment and combining what I've seen here is that no matter how dense or malleable the initial surface is, it still requires something to flex as a backplate or to condense the material. Well done Nile, breaking the box of conventional thinking to make innovations a reality.

[@BlackBanditXX]

Back in the middle ages, wooden shields were made by putting a layer of wet leather over the face and tacking it to the back. That way, when it shrank, it squeezed the wood together and made it stronger. Food for thought.

[@chonkochonkaboo6352]

Nigel is kind of like the barn cat that only visits you a few times a year and makes you very happy every time

[@jiquerez]

Absolutely underrated comment, imo.

[@superstar5123]

What are you even trying to say

[@TheThiccestChungus]

​@@superstar5123he's kinda like that barn cat, ya know.

[@SweatiestToes]

he got dat barn ket in him

[@Daavaloscxv]

Literally just saw the same comment under a wendigoon vid

[@jamestrickington9032]

If the inside of the wood is still dry, maybe you should try using a vacuum to suck all of the air out of the wood while it is submerged in the chemicals so that when the vacuum is released, the holes from the air are filled with the solution. This process is often used to stabilize wood by filling it with a resin which hardens with heat.

[@kellerbailey4353]

I had the same idea

[@Glenn_Rainwater]

I used to work in a treatment facility for power poles and this is exactly how our process was. The wood would first be placed into a tank under vacuum to remove moisture, drained, then the tank would be filled with chemical and pressurized to force the chemical deep into the wood.

[@noobFab]

Exactly this!!! The pressure pot is commonly used by knifemakers to make much harder knife scales (the wood handles) by drawing the air out of the tubes in the middle of the wood allowing it to be replaced with the hardening liquid. This experiment also needs to be much more scientific with a non-soaked, non-crushed original, a crushed, non-soaked control, and maybe a second option like epoxy used on pre-densified but untreated wood and also on un-crushed wood before crushing - this probably wouldn't work as well, but that's what experiments are for!

[@AdamRapW]

That would require a much more complicated setup. Pulling a vacuum on a heated, frothing, caustic liquid would surely make a big mess and kill your pump rather quickly.

[@karlpron]

Was looking for a comment like this. Totally agreed. Wood would not just soak in chemicals. @@Glenn_Rainwater

[@TheReKinn]

I love how in chemistry there seem to be so many moments where you proceed in the experiment based on "Color changed. Things happened. ONWARD"

[@EmiStar070]

I f-cked around, I found out, I'm recording it, and now let's kick it up a notch!

[@TheMichaellathrop]

Just remember that stuff is in fact a technical chemistry term

[@dominikbeitat4450]

@@EmiStar070 "Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." - Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[@EmiStar070]

@@dominikbeitat4450 it's science if you record it!

[@mariannatatarska1140]

well that's basically how it works colour changed so chemically something happened (probably)

[@rickboucher7916]

Nile , if you’re living in Canada. Go to a sports store, and purchase a secondhand (stiff snowboard). Cut it into two pieces so you have 12 inches bye 6 inches and a second one of 12“ x 6“. Drill quarter inch holes 1 inch apart down the 12 inch sides close to the edge then take the second piece and repeat the process. Now think of your running shoes on how you lace them and use that same process on binding the two 12inch links together. On the 6 inch side, go 3 inches in and drill a hole, and on the other 6 inches (second piece) drill a hole . Take a string and holding the two pieces on your chest (after you Sewn them together) And measure out the amount of string it takes to go around your neck and connect both holes drilled into the 2-6 inch sides . When hung around your neck, the two -12 inch sides protrude from your sternum which will deflect a pointed incoming round. It will deflect and possibly save your life. Bullets (full metal jacket 7.62 mm) will deflect at 45°. Try this out on your KZbin channel.

[@animosity9197]

Love that when Nile was talking about setting up the grain of the two pieces of wood perpendicular to each other, I was nodding along because that's what we do in sewing when we want to make sure a flat-lined piece of fabric is as strong as possible. Scrolling to the comments to see people in other industries chiming in about the same thing being useful in other types of construction and armor is delightful!

[@sinisterthoughts2896]

Yup. Thats how plywood works and why it's stronger than the same cut of homogeneous wood. Also when stacking pallets or loading trucks you use the same or principle to make the load far more stable. One of those simple but incredibly useful buts of knowledge. I didn't realize it applied to sewing, so you taught me something today. Thanks!

[@MrPicklesAndTea]

I also didn't know it applied to sewing, but epoxy/fiberglass bullet proof armor is made the same way, also, carbon fiber bikes which is just epoxied carbon fiber, applies the same principles tactically, depending on the stress points.(continuous fibers are strongly circumstantially)

[@minimaster0328]

this idea is used in many different things, like plywood for structural strength, or kevlar for strengthening actual bulletproof armor another fun fact, kevlar is actually a fabric and is easily cut by scissors

[@ast_rsk]

Forgetting the amazing bulletproof aspect, imagine a floor made of tiles of this wood, it looks downright manageable and beautiful.

[@mikeincinci]

But cutting it would be hard on blades.

[@NoahSteckley]

Yeah! Might not stain

[@MegaBrokenstar]

Scratchproof hardwood, in literally any shape… holy shit.

[@star.am-a]

@@MegaBrokenstar Hexagons, hexagons are the best-agons,

[@MegaBrokenstar]

@@NoahSteckleyyou could pre-stain the wood before densifying it, or stain it during the chemical treatment which would likely result in a perfectly full-depth stain. Alternatively, the results of processing are already pretty beautiful and highlight the grain nicely. I’m actually kind of excited about this material as hardwood flooring and especially as trim and shoe moulding. Not to mention tabletop, workshop, and kitchen applications. Imagine an entire dining room table that is usable as a cutting board without the slightest trace of damage. The idea of a relatively cheap to manufacture scratchproof and dentproof wood product is tantalizing.

[@OverwatchPlaysGames147]

I'm really surprised that Nile didn't use a vacuum chamber to help saturate the wood with the chemicals. I think that if the entire block was saturated, it would help with the layers bonding and causing less splitting when shot.

[@wiliestrogue2924]

When he cut the wood and it was dry in the middle...this was my thought. A vacuum chamber would make this process far more reliable.

[@chrisguest5528]

Either that or pressure cook it

[@Cinnamonwa]

I saw this process being used to pickle cucumbers within like a minute

[@gearhead1302]

My thought exactly. Like the pickle from Action Lab

[@SoranDK]

So fun coming to write a comment and finding exactly the same already here and even citing the exact same pickle video I was thinking off when he cut the side 😛

[@djprincegrandmasteryrjdalo2905]

7:09 “and now my wood is ready to be cooked” 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@fadhilyudistira8819]

nile went from precise chemistry into alchemy into ballistic research and now he's going back to alchemy next

[@waleedabdullahkhan5706]

lol some months later nile would say so we are testing if my wooden bunker can a bomb

[@LuisSierra42]

And then to construct an atomic bomb from apples

[@TheTamally]

Just casually inviting code bullet to shoot some condensed wood in a random forest is the most NileRed thing. The crossover none of us knew we needed.

[@Avruthlelbh]

I have not once cared about celebrity appearances in shows or anything, but the moment I saw Code Bullet on a Chemistry-based channel, I actually jumped out of my seat a bit.

[@KamielDV2]

The collab of Heroes we needed

[@Thugshaker_thequaker]

Have you discovered safety third podcast yet?

[@apollocosmic3780]

Evan was the last person i expected to see on a nile red video ngl

[@BobbieTheFish]

Brings him to the forest like "wait I thought you were a shooting channel"

[@Michblack0000]

Nile, have you looked into how they industrially pressure treat wood? Pieces are placed in a giant vacuum chamber and heated to reduce moisture content and then placed in a pressurized chamber filled with the liquid chemicals they want to force into the wood pores, also at temperature. I think if you added some vacuum drying (to encourage the wood to soak more liquid) and pressurized chemical cleaning you would get the chemicals to penetrate considerably deeper into the wood grain.

[@derpmaster2732]

I feel like that would be out of his budget.

[@Nebulaofthenorth]

@@derpmaster2732 yeah but i think thats how the paper made the test

[@LavaDonuts]

​@@derpmaster2732 eh, you can make a vacuum chamber for relatively cheap and adding a hot plate shouldn't be the hardest addition. For the small sizes he's working with it shouldn't be super difficult or expensive

[@juliofoolio2982]

@@LavaDonutsI am looking for some plans for a relatively cheap vacuum chamber, got any hot tips? Thanks.

[@funkstrong]

For the initial step you could use a similar setup woodworkers use to stabilize wood. Pull a vaccum with the piece of wood in the solution, the vacuum will pull all of the air out and the solution in. Not expensive at all.

[@tonyjohnstone2970]

Old mate really thought nobody would question 249cm tall on the gun licence hahaha

[@Dhepburn634]

The fact that code bullet and Nilered are friends makes so much sense

[@aero8921]

he's also friends with Michael Reeves

[@definitelynotanAIchatbot]

Unfortunately, he's also friends with notorious child predator Carlos the Frog. 😒

[@TheManudo00]

He is friends with javrils too

[@morbrakai8533]

​@Plushiegamyt Or is he? 🤨

[@chrisa3948]

Bravo! I come from a structural engineering background and this documentary was amazing! I thought it would be worth sharing some observations I made. COEFFICIENT OF MOISTURE ABSORPOTION - 35:40 Moisture permeates a material at a certain rate. If you remove the wood from the solution too soon, the wood does not become fully saturated. At 35:40, the difference in color could be indication that the material near the exterior is saturated(wet), while the inner material is unsaturated (dry looking). If you measure the weights before and after, you should see a difference in weight because the material has absorbed different amounts of the solution. At 47:33, you noted that the material feels stiffer. This could be because you allowed the material more time to absorb more moisture, thus becoming stiffer. WARPING DUE TO TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES - 44:35 Materials are known to expand or contract as the temperature changes. If the temperature is not uniform, the expansion/contraction will be uneven and will lead to thermal distortions/warping. I suspect the exterior of the wood starts to cool down while the interior stays warm for an extended period of time. Since the exterior is cooler than the interior, this might be playing a role in the warping. If I remember, an autoclave could be used to help keep the temperatures uniform, which would help mitigate warping. P.S. Also note that the wood and NaOH and Na2SO3 solutions have different coefficients of thermal expansion. The wood and the permeated solution might be expanding/contracting differently as the temperature changes. POISSON EFFECT - 33:40 When you compress most materials, the material tends to expand elsewhere. Compress a penny and its thickness decreases, but its diameter increases. Compress other objects, and the outcome is almost a wider result. Very clever in using tooling to wall off the wood and partially prevent the expansion. I suspect it is that expansion that was causing some of the cracks that were observed during production. DELAMINATION - 16:20 Imagine stacking multiple pancakes. When you compress the pancakes, you will see almost the same behavior as in 16:20. Is this delamination occurring? I suspect this is not good because that means you have compromised the strength of the wood, which is irreversible. Your clever use of tooling to wall off the wood during compression was great in preventing some of the delamination. Factors important to ballistic tolerance Density - Some modern military tanks are equipped with radioactive uranium armor because uranium is one of the more denser materials in the periodic table. A higher density is preferred because it means the projectile has to dig through more material to make it across. Thickness - The plate/wood needs to be sufficiently thick to resist the impact. It was great to see that 7 plates of wood was reduced to 3 plates to resist the bullet. Good stuff!

[@theheroofmagicical628]

underrated comment

[@Dr.JohanFitzgerald]

EXCELLENT.

[@whatsomeonesaidwastaken9216]

Indubitably.

[@markfergerson2145]

How the wood was dried should also affect how it takes up the solutions used. Almost all commercially sold lumber is kiln dried but standards for rate of drying and target moisture content vary from place to place. There will always be some minimum amount of moisture left, so “roasting” it before soaking should help. (Naturally seasoned wood is preferable but takes quite some extra prep time.) Before and after weighing as you say would be helpful. I get that Our Hero has limited engineering skills (despite him realizing that mechanically restricting the wood during compression was a Good Idea) and the following engineering solution might be beyond him, but heating and compressing the wood (after ensuring full penetration of the solution) under vacuum would help extract more of the solution and assist in compacting and cross linking the fibers. Your pancake stacking analogy echoes a thought of mine; the “diagonal” cracks to me looked like they followed the pre-treatment grain of the wood. Obtaining lumber with the grain perpendicular to the larger faces of the wood (e.g. 4x2 as opposed to 2x4) can be challenging but might yield better results. (Minor nit: I think you meant to say that tank armor uses *non*-radioactive (depleted) uranium.) I love the comments on these videos that bring up things the creator doesn’t know or didn’t consider.

[@badgermcbadger1968]

Modern tank armour use depleted uranium

[@Cynder887]

Something to keep in mind also is that you used rifles to fire the rounds and not handguns. The longer barrels allow for more velocity to build up for the bullets. So you were making it even harder for yourself, and it still worked out. Very cool stuff!

[@chemistryofquestionablequa6252]

Canadian laws make it really awkward do do anything with handguns unfortunately. They can't even be sold or transferred between owners anymore.

[@iridium1118]

​@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252Canada gun laws are big stupid

[@TrilliumGrandiflorum480]

Only ways he could have used a handgun for the tests would be to either: 1. Go to a range where they'd allow him to test it or 2. Own land in a rural area and submit papers to make it a personal range Easiest to just use a rifle honestly

[@pewpewTN]

​@@TrilliumGrandiflorum480Turdeau is a subhuman tyrant.

[@Cynder887]

@TrilliumGrandiflorum480 wasn't really criticising it, I know canada's gun laws are all sorts of dumb. I am in the US, so I don't know the specifics up there. Just thought it was good context to add that is not mentioned in the video about the barrel lengths.

[@Ymir._]

The reason why the water used to soak the wood is dark brown, is probably because of tannins that get removed from the wood when you soak it.

[@stuff31]

Nile's gun licence really reminded me how young he is. He's been making these fun science videos since he was like 15, and now he has an entire lab at just 24! That's so wild to me.

[@TheWolfProd]

Is he really 2,49 meters tall? Like wth i never saw a person with that height im surprised.

[@dishria]

bro that entire ID is a joke did you see that height bro its 98 inches😭😭 im pretty sure hes like 31 or 32 by now

[@Rahnonymous]

He's Canadian. He doesn't have a gun license, he has a projectile device permit

[@baguette4607]

No he’s like 31. In the safety third podcast he states he got his drivers license like 15-16 years ago so he’d have to be in his thirties. Also, there’s never been a person who’s 8 feet tall LOL

[@pasarebird02]

@@baguette4607Tallest man in history was 8 foot 11

[@simpli_A]

It’s so surreal that this guy and code bullet are friends… completely different energy

[@Stillcrown239]

CODE BULLET!?

[@dylanmccormack5600]

WHAT

[@YourPlaywright]

Like… Code Bullet is a chaotic Australian and Nile is textbook stereotypical polite Canadian… how did that happen?? I need to know all the details of how they met and became friends because that sounds like an awesome story

[@shakes.816]

They aren't "friends" it's a Collab

[@WalterZombie69]

​@shakes.816 how is it a collab if code bullet provided almost nothing for the whole video

[@cybercat7851]

Let’s applaud the real chads here: the delivery guys who brought the heat press inside.

[@MeltedMask]

Jack Pallet, is hes name. True Chad, made of steel. For the friends he is Pallet Jack Lifter of half ton.

[@davidgarner7948]

Had to have used a pallet jack

[@eebydeebyz]

That was the first thing I thought when he received it.

[@justinmckee2256]

@@MeltedMaskthere’s half ton ones? The pallet jacks we use are good to 5500lb

[@dearthofdoohickeys4703]

No way they didn’t use a jack

[@BlackBanditXX]

I'm really impressed with your results. I honestly didn't think the compressed wood had a chance in hell of stopping 9mm. Now you got me wondering about simply laminating the wood in a similar manner to auto-glass?

[@Qoride]

I have no idea why but seeing security footage of nigel just running into a box on the floor over and over again can't make me stop laughing

[@gardenthefermentingsound6218]

It looked like he was hugging it at first 😂

[@bradzulick69]

And his friend just stood there, watching, waiting...

[@mewingsmuga]

you can’t just say this without making a timestamp

[@lollingrock]

5:04

[@SkySovereignn]

ikr 😂😂

[@foogod4237]

If you ever decide to go back and revisit this, I think one of the first things I would want to look into is why when you sliced through that one block of wood the interior looked so much different than the exterior. That really makes me think that the chemical processing steps may not be fully converting the inner portion of the wood in the way that they're supposed to, so even though it is compressing roughly the same way it should, it may not be able to actually form the additional bonds between fibers the way it is supposed to. This would also explain why it still seems to be delaminating in much the same way that ordinary wood fibers would do, which seems a bit suspicious if there actually was substantially increased bonding between the compressed fibers like the paper suggested should happen. (you also didn't appear to do much in the way of testing with the unprocessed wood for comparison. I'm curious what would happen if you just took the raw wood and put it through the same pressure/heat treatment, without the chemical steps, and how it would compare.)

[@Skaldewolf]

If you look at the process of compression, you see that the middle section isn't compressing as well as the rest, maybe hinting at problems with chemical penetration.

[@beaugrylls7771]

Yep. Even in testing, the inside of the wood was a significantly different colour. Appears that the chemicals didn't leach. I think it would be better to use thinner pieces of wood so that they leach completely. Then crosshatch like ply in the press. Doing it without glue would also be a good test as to whether the hydrogen bonds can occur between seperate pieces (and therefore test whether they occur at all).

[@Hnkka]

Maybe its pressure treated wood? Making few small holes to the slab could help to make the slab all the way moist like 2 5mm holes in both endgrains

[@Drewski777]

Not only would using thinner pieces of wood help ensure the absorption of the chemicals throughout the whole slice, but I believe cross-hatching 5 thinner pieces of "bulletproof wood" would also make it much much stronger due to more pieces being cross-hatched. If he did that, I feel like it could potentially stop a 5.56

[@gnaarW]

​@@beaugrylls7771even thinner pieces would be problematic as wood fibers absorb length wise. Shorter pieces ;)

[@texasranger24]

Some ideas for future improvements: -use thinner pieces of wood to get complete penetration of the base to dissolve all lignin and hemicellulose -use a completely square (or SAPI shaped, lol) steel cage to crush them -add multiple of the thin plates alternating and crush them together to have one glue-free plate (hence closing off both sides to avoid crushing o both ends) alternatively you can look at different solution methods like organosolv (methanol at ~180C and 30bar) or ionosolv ([Et3N][HSO4] at ~130C and 30bar).

[@lit_for_20]

also: composites! if this is intended as armor, he could incorporate a thin metal sheet - the wood absorbs and breaks up the bullet, the metal stops any fragments from exiting

[@jonathanbates9928]

Something to also consider is trying to keep the grain on the wood as symmetrical as possible. That will help with even pressing the wood. It might also be worth using a pressure vessel to treat the wood. The extra pressure would force the chemical deeper into the wood. That has common wood as treated. It's also how resins are forced into wood. A final note, pre spread the wood glue, to prevent air pockets.

[@chriskerwin3904]

@@lit_for_20 yeah a piece of abrasion resistant steel or titanium would help a lot

[@multipotentialite]

​@@jonathanbates9928pressure or vacuum?

[@Scott_C]

ALSO! he should "Stabilize" it. A process that uses resin and a vacuum chamber to turn soft objects hard.

[@0leg0101]

Shoutout to this guy for taking 3 years to make this video

[@Ocer.]

The Code Bullet collab was HIGHLY unexpected! Cool that you guys are friends

[@fallen_angelmemesforlife9172]

dumb shit coding and dumb shit chemistry. Now those are two things I never thought would become related.

[@hidennarror3952]

what i love is taping the wood to the block and propping a stick behind it is so a Code Bullet idea

[@GeckyWecky]

Hm I wouldn’t call it a collab, more like a cameo.

[@gusmalone2005]

Code Bullet was on the Safety Third podcast which Nile is usually a host on. I can't remember if Nile was on that particular episode though, he hasn't been hosting as regularly recently.

[@beardsntools]

Idk who this is, but he is very handsome, unlike the dude running this channel.

[@Mongaloose]

The real reason the test was performed in the forest was to show the trees just how strong their mutant friend became after Nile's experiments.

[@Moth_IsHere1769]

This should be a comic book villain. A tree that's jealous because it's friends got to be super heroes and experimented on itself to become a tree monster

[@pellekofficial]

sick content lately Nile. you're crushing it

[@obbyx]

He's crushing it even more than the wood ;)

[@mihailmilev9909]

​@@obbyxright lol

[@mihailmilev9909]

16 1 4h 2h

[@MyDemon32]

Fancy seeing you here man!

[@jaymethodus3421]

Underrated comment 👌

[@thonkytonk]

The security footage of him getting a running start into the box and bouncing on it, then Reggie being able to casually shift it took me OUT lmao 😹😹😹

[@joeljennings8621]

You were correct that your solution was not saturating the center of the wood. You can use a vacuum to get it to penitrate fully.put your whole soaking set up in a vacuum and hold vacuum for the same length of time it takes to remove all air from the wood

[@NorthBus]

Won't that make the vacuum solution boil off?

[@RADMAN5240]

@@NorthBus you can always pull a light vacuum so the pressure drops to encourage air out of the wood, while also being higher than the boiling point of the solution.

[@JoFreddieRevDr]

I was thinking the cooking stage in a pressure cooker would help with penetration, maybe soaking in a vacuum then cooking in a pressure cooker.

[@ЗахарКосолапов-в7ъ]

This wood is FUCKING RAW

[@maxximumb]

Use pressure to drive the solution into the wood?

[@iffyspeak]

Wow. A CodeBullet cameo. That's oddly kind of awesome. I love seeing all the youtubers I like combine in weird ways.

[@voltagevictor5765]

I was thinking the same thing. The collab we never thought of but appreciate.

[@shivers5718]

yeah when i saw CodeBullet i was like "holy fucking shit"

[@amcarver]

Just a thought: the store bought wood is kiln dried. It changes the lignin. Air dried but not totally dried (like seasoned firewood for instance) should take to treatment better. Maybe even reduce layer count, but that last part is just a guess. Nice work!

[@midnlghtmoon]

i also remember him having to pressurize air out of wood when he did his translucent wood video to fully penetrate it, which probably would have helped for this experiment too.

[@nopenoperson8964]

@@midnlghtmoonthat was resin iirc, and this is water, so it’s probably not as important

[@blindsniper35]

​@@nopenoperson8964I think it is actually fairly important. It would definitely help the wood uptake the chemical mixture much better. Coincidentally this is how you would treat wood for certain applications.

[@jasonchiu272]

Also the vaccuum chamber might come in handy getting the liquid all the way through the wood.

[@Furukkan5]

That was cool!

[@Digimastertwo]

After the first test I was just mentally screaming "Use a form in the press!" And I am so glad you did.

[@agent57]

Haha, I was screaming that before he even pressed the first piece.

[@lysdexiar31]

me too!@@agent57

[@BobWidlefish]

Same! Obviously the press is tilting dramatically I don’t see why he struggles to see that. Each crank of the handle shows clearly a tilt.

[@nicholas31415]

I really had hoped he was going to use a puck press to not allow it to spread out in any direction. Plus he could have easily used a hole saw after soaking the wood to make it perfectly fit the mold. If I were to do this experiment, I would have tested the impact strength of different thicknesses of the glue lam wood plus the strength if one of the layers had the grain pointing towards the bullet. Adding a table and graphs would have been borderline ready to publish his findings. But yeah, it looked like quite a tedious boiling and pressing process, so I can see why he is kinda done with it.

[@ww-pw6di]

Also would make sense that if compressing the wood 5x makes it 5x stronger (denser), then why wouldn't 10x do the same just 10x stronger? There's probably an upperbound for how much lignin and hemicellulose can be removed, but just the fact that it could be compressed from 5x by 10% more, what we're seeing probably isn't that upperbound yet.

[@justinrussell878]

The trick would be to use multiple layers of thinner wood with each layer having their grain perpendicular to each other. Don't use glue to bond them together, use the press to add several layers at a time, just using the pressure to bond them. Also even though the wood doesn't expand as much perpendicular to the grain direction, you should have the wood enclosed on all sides, especially if you do alternating layers of wood.

[@Doorisessa]

And the thinner layers of wood would be penetrated more completely by the chemicals, too.

[@justinrussell878]

Also it may be interesting to try alternating layers of different wood species, and make a sort of composite armor.

[@kingjojojo1]

but if it's enclosed on all sides the liquid cannot get out

[@kylekinsey2624]

​@@kingjojojo1leave it open at the corners

[@i.m.2391]

​@kingjojojo1 Leave a few small holes, the liquid will pressed out.

[@manual1080]

Add pressure to the initial treatment. When telephone poles are treated, they are extremely pressurized while being treated so the chemicals actually reach the center. When the wood was cut in your video, it showed how dry it was in the middle. The middle of the wood is the densest so the hot chemicals at normal pressure wont be able to fully soak the wood.

[@HarmsWay500]

Agreed. In a pressure cooker? Or a vacuum chamber? It was definitely not treated in the middle. Amazing how screwing up shows you what the problem is! Now it’s up to you to find a solution. (Vacuum/pressurize)

[@Jrskeetpro]

My thought was doing it in a vacuum! They do the same thing when they’re impregnating epoxy in wood to harden it.

[@drzerg2]

@@Jrskeetprohe obviously had to start chemical part with vacuum to make it penetrated inside the wood or make thinner plates. and then press bunch of thin pieces in plywood fashion

[@lazygenie5616]

And another thing would be to make it bigger, it needs more area to spread out the impact of the bullet.

[@Malacar99]

And honestly, using the pressurized method plus layered, while it is not something that would be good for body armor, making things like furniture, like a table top/desk top like that could actually make the idea of 'flipping up a table to protect yourself' actually work.

[@artiequick3583]

5:47 "i then carefully opened the crate" he says while going monke on the crate

[@aerozz8851]

As a young electronics student and aspiring entrepreneur, I appreciate you showing all of the painstaking trial and error, so I can see that "the process" is never smooth even for people much smarter than me! Also, I think that the wood appearing to be dry in the middle is very significant. Looking at the shot just after you cut it open we can see that your solution penetrated more deeply at the end grain sides. Refer back to (nano?)scopic images of the wood grain, it seems to me that the solution can more easily pass through the tubes than it can through the walls. I think this experiment could be drasticically improved if the the entire wood sample was saturated in the middle as well because I imagine that the saturated exterior is getting really really dense while the center remains to be just crushed wood - essentially forcing the bulletproof wood to be bulletproff just on the exterior. If you come back to this, you ought to find a way to pull the solution through the tubes (or let the wood saturate for weeks if thats possible). I think you may have been on the right track with your first trial with the end of the wood being out of solution because the pressure differential between the hot solution and ambient atmospheric pressure may have helped "pushed up" more solution deeper into the tubes. Once again, thank you, and I hope to see you revisit this with your clever ideas! Cheers, Joshua

[@FarCry-sd6xk]

yep, my thoughts exactly!

[@hyprostic]

I was also wondering that. If the solution didn’t fully penetrate it would make sense as to why the pellet and .22LR could go through.

[@chrisdib9269]

He should submerge the wood in a vacuum chamber in order to fully saturate it.

[@xyarbro4167]

my thoughts exactly @@chrisdib9269

[@hiredgoon4269]

@@chrisdib9269 Water boils at ambient temperature in a vacuum.

[@MrFishperson]

you did a really good job at making the scientiffic process genuinely interesting to watch. i can only imagine how tedious it was to squish all those pieces of wood by hand like that

[@cda32]

Not sure about that, feels like this lacked any scientific process at all.

[@silvory7021]

@@cda32 Nigel consistently explained the thought process used to hypothesize what could fix issues he observed, which is the cyclical hypothesis-experimentation-evaluation loop that is seen in the scientific method. The edges of the wood still expanded -> maybe there's something wrong with how it was compressed? -> evaluation of video footage leading to discovery of the top plate shifting -> maybe center it better and use larger block to keep it more stable? -> worked a bit better, but it still expanded a bit on one side -> maybe use a steel template to prevent the wood from expanding? -> the wood didn't noticeably expand

[@MrFishperson]

@@cda32 the process of trial and error is the scientiffic process. you test a hypothesis, record the results, then you try again improving the process each time. this is how we end up with wood armor one day lmao. maybe not, but still an interesting project to me at least

[@apirateoftheair]

This video is a really great demonstration for why replication studies are important. Lots of important details were captured in this video that did not seem to make it into the original paper!

[@Michaelonyoutub]

As someone who has to read papers all day long and figure out how to apply them for work, a lot of papers need to be clearer on exactly how they do thing and with what kind of setup.

[@siggyincr7447]

I get the impression that if a process might have practical applications the papers are made as simplified and misleading as possible without actually lying in order to maintain some value to their expertise in the process.

[@dsp4392]

@@Michaelonyoutub Tbh papers should come with all the processes documented via video. Cameras are cheap. I know some people are already doing it, but it's far from the norm.

[@cate01a]

researchers need to start vlogging

[@oldcowbb]

​@@cate01a "Yo whats up IEEE, ... if you liked the video don't forget to cite"

[@Nacalal]

It seems like the primary issue is with the brittleness of the wood itself, the back shattering is reminiscent of an issue on older tanks known as "spalling", where the metal absorbs the impact of the round but fragments on the other side, creating shrapnel without penetrating. This issue was found to be down to the brittleness of the metal, and with how dry and brittle that wood appears to be, along with the fact that every structural failure seen with the wood involves the back blowing out so dramatically. Perhaps more time under more pressure at a slightly reduced heat would result in a more uniform melding of the grain in the wood and in turn a less brittle, more resilient material. It may also be worth while applying some sort lamination to the material, or even a thin steel/titanium lining glued to the back.

[@squidikka]

The biggest shock here was that he knows Code Bullet. Absolutely not the crossover I expected!

[@ValeBridges]

My jaw genuinely dropped when I heard that.

[@antonliakhovitch8306]

They were both at that big event that William Osman organized, so they probably met there if they didn't already know each other

[@bob-hacking6027]

And his face

[@Bobbias]

@@antonliakhovitch8306 Yeah that's a good point. KZbinrs meet each other both just through discords, mutual friends, etc. but also through events like that.

[@marksalot5035]

no doubt ..... code bullet is legend

[@HANSSAMAA]

Nile is the only Creator on KZbin where I can watch a 1h Video without skipping a single second. Props to the hard work and dedication

[@EpicManaphyDude]

no seriously homies videos are engaging all the way through. it takes a special kind of talent to make videos consistently captivating through the entire runtime and he’s absolutely got that down

[@unholyhardy4359]

I deadass watched the whole video without even noticing that it was an hour long💀😆

[@nezu_cc]

I think this also says a lot about how people's attention span has been absolutely destroyed by modern social media.

[@spblackey]

Throw it on 2x.

[@maltadevnull]

This absolutely needs to be awarded the proper attention, I love this style of video if it's pulled off well

[@SapphireScroll]

Your passion and dedication to making your ideas work and sharing lots of "boring" knowledge in a fun package alongside it is just incredible and deserves all the praise there can be. And here's a little something from me to help you out with that a bit :)

[@Jizzzmani]

Oooo, I see familiar currency :D

[@livia4838]

I love that u show all the failed process and results, really makes me feel inspired :)

[@MohamedArham69]

Hi Nigel! Just some potential suggestions to the process : 1) if the boiling process is done in a vacuum, it would force the basic solution into the cellulose tubes of the wood. This should eliminate any potential variable of the middle parts of the wood not being treated by the solution. The washing can also take place in a vacuum to force the solution out 2) if you compress the wood slabs together (the horizontal pieces and the vertical pieces together in the stainless steel press) the remaining lignin should in theory bond both pieces of wood even stronger than an artifical glue bond

[@jaxtvgaming228]

Seems neat to me!

[@MohamedArham69]

@@jaxtvgaming228 I agree. Although I also must admit that those steps might not be the easiest, especially when working with a vacuum

[@elliotmurphy534]

Just came to make this exact comment 😂. thx for putting it way better than I ever could have 😊

[@NVidea-yz1fg]

3) use more horizontal/vertical layers, i.e. half the thickness of each slab, but twice the number of layers in total

[@francoendrigo]

Also, he can use 1 to 2 mm height size compressed wood and compact together many sheets, that'll probably homogenized the system due to the fact that a thiner slab in this case can be less prone to critical structure failure.

[@nicholaswiseman1396]

I worked on this exact project for about a year! I did it for a science fair project a few years ago. I used a 20 ton hydraulic press that I got for just $100. One of the tough parts like you mentions was heating it while being pressurized for so long. I got it to stop a 9mm from 10 feet away at about 1/4 inch wood. Thank you for this video, it was great to see someone else go through this process.

[@VICIOUS1209.]

Did you use the same steps as nile did or did you use a different kind of wood ? Because a 9mm is a significantly stronger bullet. And judging by the efforts nile did, it is really hard to make a bullet stopping wood

[@tracyh5751]

@@VICIOUS1209. significantly stronger bullet than what? NileRed also tested against a 9mm and was successful.

[@henryrothert6160]

@@tracyh5751 with a way thicker piece of wood

[@MihkelKukk]

I really wonder if using smth like Oak instead would do much better against a ballistic projectile

[@AsGames-g1k]

1/4 inch thick armor wood or 1/4 inch of penetration?

[@Legendest_]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate just how insanely persistent nigel is? Like dude has spent YEARS on a task Edit: wow thanks for 1.4k likes I didn’t expect this

[@AscendingBlazed]

A casual Runescape player

[@ryanbui2046]

He does this all the time on multiple projects at the same time- and not even all of them make it into videos. Nigel is truly just an absolute monster of dedication

[@lindboknifeandtool]

His name is nigel?

[@supreme_xenon]

@@lindboknifeandtool Yes

[@Rowgue51]

You see the insane lab he's setting up with all the money he's making from people watching him do those tasks? It's kind of a motivating factor.

[@arianafadroski3188]

God I love this backyard chemist. This channel is perfect

[@jgig1329]

You should send this video to the corresponding author(s) of the paper, I bet they’d love it! I also think it’s worthy of praise that you preservered so many times when quitting seemed obvious, and achieved something amazing because of it. Amazing video all around

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

I think it would just make them realise how poorly their method in the paper was written if it took Nile this many times to get it right

[@chickennuggets8685]

@@user-op8fg3ny3j They could use that as critique and make it better

[@MedievalSolutions]

​​@@user-op8fg3ny3jfrom the papers I've read, that is quite annoyingly a common theme, scientists need writing courses unironically. (But no hate, they're very highly educated, it's probably hubris to a degree, they probably just assume other scientists know what they mean)

[@ML7WL]

The research is awsome, it open up paths for many new considerations on the subject...but things like claiming is near strong as steel when it's clearly not, kinda fishy...

[@swc0ll]

@@user-op8fg3ny3j I think they know how well they described it, and that it is very common to give far less than perfect descriptions of experiment in scientific papers

[@iNick90]

You know it's crazy I basically watched the whole video. Goes to show that you don't need to go out of your way to edit it down to 10 minutes to appease people who actually want to learn with you when you make mistakes. Really appreciate you showing every step of the way I look forward to your next hour video lol

[@Leoric.]

I just finished the video and was perusing the comments and took a double take at yours as I realized the video was an hour long. I just happily consumed the whole thing without even realizing how much time had passed. Sign of good content I guess lol

[@Earth-To-Zan]

watched the whole thing while doing chemistry homework lol

[@CommandProMC]

I did _not_ realize that that was an hour until the very end!

[@1hatep1ck1ngnames]

This is probably the longest video I've watched - the mistakes are what really drew me in

[@northerntarantulas]

Yeah it is shows you the mistakes and lets you also learn by making the same mistakes and understand why

[@jen6373]

Love that you shot regular unsmooshed wood at the end. It really sold how well the squishified wood worked at stopping bullets.

[@bushidorox]

Considering how well you did with an _imperfect_ version of the wood plate armor you made, I’d love to see what a perfect version of this wood plate armor could do. Also, imagine making actual Samurai armor (or something) out of this and tossing it into the past. It’d probably be venerated as some master warlock’s finest piece of magic!

[@josephsmith5061]

I feel like there was a lot to learn from cutting the wood, and seeing that it was still dry. One of the main ways of treating wood is pressure treating, where pressure is used to get preservatives deeper into it. This could also be part of the issue with the wood pressing out sideways, where the center of the wood still has all of the material that the chemical is supposed to get rid of. I would love to see a follow up video if it were left in a pressure cooker for a longer period of time. In theory, you could maybe even leave a chunk of wood for different amounts of time in just water, cut it, and see if the inside is wet. If you ever decided to revisit this, and try to one up yourself, I would love to see a collaboration with someone like Kentucky Ballistics, who love trying to see what types of bullets different materials can stop.

[@kilgoar]

Possibly using thinner materials, more layers. I recommend against the pine. Anything but softwood

[@yshwgth]

Yeah, it was driving me crazy he didn't saw through more pieces and investigate what seems to be THE glaring issue. It looks like the solution only penetrates a a bit, but the core is just unaffected. I think he just made mostly squished regular wood.

[@kaelberberich1765]

@@yshwgththat’s exactly what I was thinking the last 20 or so minutes of the video.

[@clintgossett1879]

Yes, I expected to see either a vacuum chamber or pressure vessel in his final treatment method. Overall great video and great effort.

[@weedlordbonerhitlerii3862]

Consultation with expertise from the pulp & paper industry would probably be beneficial too, it's quite similar to what they do but skipping the "grind everything into chips first" step

[@verlocian]

If you ever revisit this, I would recommend putting the wood in a vacuum chamber while in the solution and then releasing the pressure to fill it with liquid, the KZbin channel Peter Brown has some good videos where he demonstrates this to stabilise wood with resin. I’d also recommend trying to press the two plates of wood together rather than glueing them. Hydrogen bonds holding them together would be much stronger! Great video man!!

[@altaica3522]

I thought about pressing two wood plates at the same time too, maybe that could've made a diffrence aswel

[@connorcolumbia5398]

He actually does exactly that in his video about the transparent wood

[@Gilthwixt1]

Some bullet proof materials, notably glass, actually benefit from having a layer of glue between them as the glue absorbs energy and turns it into heat. It might be that Nile just needs a better, purpose made glue for this.

[@dizzious]

Was going to suggest the same thing for getting the treatment liquid into the center of the wood blocks

[@Turgid_Spleenis]

Aren’t hydrogen bonds what create surface tension in water? Seems very weak compared to wood glue, which is stronger than the wood surrounding it.

[@aneko31]

I was 100% sure the dry middle part was going to be foreshadowing for some critical issue that would fix everything but it just, didnt get mentioned at all 😭

[@Ayse-x8d3u]

yeah, I actually wonder if it was a big thing though. Makes me wonder if the wood in the study was well seasoned and dry first. IM gonna do a google search on getting stain to penetrate all the way through wood. Also were the depth dimensions he used the same as the study? because that could change everything, because even if the outer shell is fully treated, he's then potentionally mixing that outer shell with the untreated inner shell, and that could throw off the whole chemical fusion aspect. the water is assumedly the only thing in the treated part by the time he was pressing, so it's not transfering over the first solution he used while pressing even. I wonder what would happen if he cut it into thin strips adding up to the same depth of starting wood, and then pressed them like that. One time with all the grain going the same direction, and one version with them criss crossed(even though that's not what was cited in the study, we might get some data from that)

[@thebakedchef]

I absolutely think it played a good part kinda a weird oversight

[@Preston241]

I wonder if drilling very small holes through could help disperse the liquid through the whole block. I imagine it would affect the structural integrity of the final product but it would be worth a shot if the idea is revisited someday.

[@Ayse-x8d3u]

@@Preston241 It might not, considering the fusing process it is supposed to later go through when compressed/heated. You might be on to something!. Space the hooles a little less than the distance he observed it soaking through when he cut it? i think you're on to something worth trying.

[@cantthinkanameup]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠I also thought about the pressing process eventually permeating deeper into the wood, however, since the wood was washed several times and soaked, the solution would not remove the lignin and hemicellulose deeper in the wood. I think a reasonable solution would be to pressure treat the wood, instead of soaking it. Or prior to that, attempt soaking it for much longer. Or perhaps soaking/pressing multiple thinner layers, gluing them together with the grains reversed until a net desired thickness is achieved, and then try shooting it! I would also say that since wood glue is designed for wood and not designed for densified wood, I would also experiment with different types of glue if issues continued to persist

[@t0tallyarand0mguy-rbx]

nile has so much determination and passion!!!!

[@NoviSavvy]

Hi Nile! Here's a few ideas you should try to improve the results: 1) Use a pressurized stainless steel container to remove air and force in the chemicals into the wood. You can also seal it in such a way so the chemicals will be pumped from one side of the block and exit from another. Most likely, you should pump it from the side and use a solenoid electric pump from a small coffee machine. It is stainless and plastic and can give 15 bars of pressure. You can also use the same container to hold the wood while under the press so it won't deform at all from the beginning to the final result. 2) Use more blocks of wood stacked on top of each other. 3) Cut the block into thinner sheets and rotate them to alternate fiber alignment. Try different patterns, like, 0, 90, 0, 90 or 0, 45, 90, 45, 0 etc. Try stacking like 100 layers. Do it before the press. 4) Completely lock the material in a mold and apply more pressure 100% of the time. 5) Vacuum dry the final or intermediate result and pressurize it with epoxy resin to fill in the remaining gaps. Not sure if this will even help but that's feels very intuitive to do lmao

[@vittorioballeriocastoldi6171]

I agree (except for the resin part that is probably more harm than good), i would use some different wood with a tighter grain. Unfortunately the good couple centuries old pine is no longer available for more than sample sizes. If I could manage to make or find a press for cheap I would definitely try to make a few

[@dingus42]

I feel like a vacuum chamber could work really well to force the solution into the wood, kind of like how instant pickles are made

[@SUPERMAR10312]

If I remember correctly high pressure helps to force a liquid into something as well

[@reptarien]

To be entirely fair to your final wood, most bulletproof vests are not rated for more than a few shots. And of course, if you're shot even once, the entire thing realistically needs to be replaced after the fact. So I think the bulletproof wood has even *more* potential than you pointed out. Very cool proof of concept!!

[@corwinweber693]

Depends on the type/rating. Class 4 armor will stop a 30-06 armor piercing round. One. Once. It shatters in the process. (This is what absorbs the energy.) Class 3A will usually stop several rounds at the very least. Class 4 is ceramic, 3A isn't. Vests, (soft armor) are almost unknown these days and don't work all that well. Plate carriers are the norm.

[@reptarien]

@@corwinweber693 yep this is basically the basis for my comment 😀

[@rear9259]

It lets you make a mistake once. And gives you a chance to shoot back

[@zuruumi9849]

@@rear9259 Realistically speaking, there is a greater chance you get shot somewhere not covered by the plate (neck, hands, legs, face) than getting hit twice in it one after another.

[@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017]

@@zuruumi9849That entirely depends on who is shooting.

[@thetky_clan666]

Nile & Code Bullet is a crossover I never would've expected (one does science, the other does coding) in other words one of the best videos from 2 people whom somewhat know what they're doing & eventually become successful. Yep, a very good video to what remains of this year (2 months left at the time of this video)

[@hugalafutro]

I finished watching Code Bullet's Rick & Morty AI compilation before this and then suddenly seeing him appear in the video was surreal.

[@Larunda]

Right? Unexpected collab haha

[@joely_boiii]

Seeing the two of them together made me almost unreasonably happy. The most unexpected but welcome crossover ever!

[@TheFuckingKrayz]

I really hope they do some nileblue stuff together.

[@wholewheat467]

Nile is also wearing a “wewd” shirt, which is Bobby dukes art pretty much catchphrase

[@Secret_Identity_4841]

50:08 real armor plates are supposed to absorb the shock from the bullet, some goes through yes but as long you survive its a successful armor plate

[@mikeski8827]

Question: Do you ever share your results with the authors of the papers you get some of your ideas from? I feel like in cases like this they'd be very interested to compare notes.

[@Stingraysquad]

My first thought when issues started cropping up was "Why didn't you just look up the contact information of the authors and send them an email?". The majority of academics absolutely love it when you show interest in their work, and they would probably be happy to answer any questions.

[@JustinMannn]

@@Stingraysquadyeah, they’d probably be thrilled!

[@__AbAbe]

i was thinking this same thing @@Stingraysquad

[@QuintarFarenor]

@@Stingraysquad Especially considering he basically peer reviewed it.

[@namibjDerEchte]

​@@QuintarFarenorMuch better even: he did a replication study.

[@FullPounder]

After 12 years of school, I didn't think it would be possible for me to sit through an hour of chemistry without zoning out. I stand corrected.

[@dylutant]

Most academic things become fun and interesting once you're out of compulsory education. I was finishing up my masters (physics) around the same time when discovering that history, get this, is captivating as hell and twice as metal if not told by a pompous old bag that regurgitates dates. Now I'm 35 and if I could, I'd drop the job and transcend from weekend hobby into full-blown classics study in a heartbeat.

[@pedroamerico9992]

@@dylutant Yup history is pretty fucking brutal and i hate my teachers for not showing me that

[@MaskedDeath_]

@@dylutant Hard agree. I hated lots of subjects back in school, but I love learning about topics related to them now. I think that the worst problem is that most of education focuses on memorization and not actual learning and building critical thinking skills. I understand that some basic knowledge is required, but what the education system tried (and is still trying, university isn't much better) to force into our brains is superfluous, and a waste of time and energy that could be spent on building actual skills.

[@thezipcreator]

@@MaskedDeath_ cos the primary point of the education system rn is to churn out workers, actual education comes second

[@stirfryjedi]

Thank you for the PSA that this is nearly an hour long lol

[@morelhunter3966]

Thick wood takes awhile to soak all the way through. The issue is by the time the inside is treated and the lingnin is broken down sufficiently on the inside, the outside will be too broken down. To fix you can use thinner pieces of wood, press them down into essentially sheets and then glue them back together into the thickness of the piece youve used in the video. In addition you can alternate grain directions between sheets and have a very strong piece of wood.

[@chir0pter]

Yeah you're basically making a carbon fiber laminate at that point. Seems like it would have a lot of potential. Nile needs to do some more reading and come at this with some more sophistication

[@morelhunter3966]

@@chir0pter the potential for strength if optimized would be a really interesting follow up video imo with very little input of time and effort.

[@primedialga]

The initial cooking time might need some adjustments, but i think taking thinner slices of wood is definitely a good way to improve it. You might even be able to press-cook two or three thin sheets at the same the same time by using thin steel spacers, though that might cause issues with the heat transfer...

[@excrubulent]

​@@primedialgaYou may not need to space them, just press cook them into their final configuration, and maybe confine it in both directions. That way you get the laminates cooking into a single piece rather than relying on another type of glue. You'd have to solve drainage for the pressing procedure when it's confined all around but I imagine that's as simple as creating some thin openings in the corners.

[@naiasakatos7787]

This is the most fun I’ve had while listening to a guy talk about his wood for an hour

[@JuilySlay]

Love how Evan (aka code bullet) just casually traveled halfway across the entire globe for this vid. Like the dude seriously went from Australia to Canada

[@juststardust9816]

When does he come in?

[@core_russell3869]

About 40 minutes in​@@juststardust9816

[@Ms.Pronounced_Name]

40:20 ​@@juststardust9816

[@danielbaliki2698]

@@juststardust9816 40:16

[@fredb5626]

i feel like this was before his face reveal too LOL

[@tomlynmathewsjr7514]

This is not the crossover I was expecting. Never in my life did I imagine I'd see Code Bullet helping someone with questionable science. XD

[@LegoGoblin]

more of a cameo

[@wolfsiejk]

and niel filming with a "wewd" shirt.

[@bullet2275]

My exact thoughts on the matter 😂

[@Scurvyy]

And he showed up when there was bullets and never appeared again

[@wolfsiejk]

@@Scurvyy lol

[@caittails]

Nile really takes peer reviewing to a new level. 😂

[@frandurrieu6477]

Peer reviewing the shit one of those shitty srticles would focus on

[@Jbrimbelibap]

peer rewewding

[@vrdev4714]

I'd have a few things to say to the team that wrote that paper, after spending weeks troubleshooting...

[@FrenkieWest32]

@@vrdev4714 just because a layman cannot repeat it instantly doesn't mean the authors did anything wrong...

[@uuh4yj43]

​@@FrenkieWest32 methods should be extremely clear in order to be reproducible, it isnt his fault he couldnt folllow instructions not stated.

[@thedjkay]

You should have used hardwoods instead of softwoods-I’m certain the results would have been drastically different. Additionally, applying tung oil or linseed oil as the final step would have been a game-changer. These oils not only enhance the wood's flexibility by conditioning the fibers but could also have significantly reduced the risk of the wood cracking or exploding. To ensure thorough penetration of the chemicals, I would have used a vacuum chamber during both the initial and final steps, guaranteeing even distribution throughout the wood.