I am building this Quarter Sawn White Oak humidor and decided to go with fuming the oak. Fuming is when you put the piece in a sealed container with a bowl or two of ammonia inside with it.....

The ammonia vapors (fumes) cause the tanins in the wood to react....causes a sort of chemical reaction that darkens the wood, especially oak due to it's high tanin content.... Hence, the term fuming....

So... I decided to put a test piece of Quarter Sawn White Oak inside the humidor to test the seal..... if the seal was bad, the test piece would have turned as the humidor did.....

In the picture, the test piece that was inside of the humidor during the fuming is the square on the left.... the "control" piece is the longer piece to the right, which was not involved with the process at all......

First time I've this......

So... I am very pleased to see that my seals on my humidors.....do just that. Seal it!

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Very cool Ed!
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Awesome idea.
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Absolutely beautiful. My favorite species of wood. Look forward to more fantastic pieces. Your work is truly inspiring. I have a white oak humidor that is about finished. Hopefully I can post some pics. Keep up the great work.
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I don't understand how this is a accurate test. Can you elaborate on how you confirm it's a good seal?
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The test block of Wood is put inside the Humidor, which is then Closed. The closed Humidor containing the block of wood is then placed inside the fuming container with the bowls of Ammonia. If the Humidor lacked a proper seal, then the small block of wood would have the same appearance as the Humidor due to the Ammonia vapors getting inside the Humidor. However since the Humidor has a good seal the vapors could not get to the small block of wood. Therefore Topnotch Seal. :-)
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#1) that looks like a sweet humi :-)
#2) Great test Ed, I'm glad it worked for you, and it should prove that you are making quality humis that have a great seal. Keep up the good work!
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