Cactus Juice is a great product. It works as stated and wood stabilization is easy and affordable. I recently had the opportunity to call Turn Tex and was pleasantly surprised to have Curtis himself answer the phone on the third ring. Very nice talking to him and I got my questions answered, and had a very good discussion with him. He is the foremost authority on wood stabilization, so save yourself time and effort and go straight to him and Turn Tex for your products and education on this subject.
I recently received the "Pump Saver" and I ordered it with the wrong size hose barbs. Entirely my error. One call to Curtis and he sent me to a local "big box" store (Lowe's) and they had them in stock! I highly recommend that if you are not positive of your hose size, order the Pump Saver without barbs and buy them locally.
We also had a great discussion regarding the negative comments on websites regarding Cactus Juice ruining the lids on vacuum chambers. I, like many newbies to stabilization, bought a chamber with a 5/8 inch thick polymer lid (5 gallon size). After several uses a crack developed in the center of the lid. Nowhere near the manifold hole. When I noticed the crack starting to develop I measured the deflection of the lid and found that under the best vacuum my pump could pull, the lid deflected almost an eight of an inch in the center; thus the position of the crack. This had no relation to Cactus Juice. I know the juice didn't play a part in this because of the way I immerse the wood. I put the wood in a plastic paint bucket, cover it with clear plastic wrap, cut a small slit in the clear plastic (away from the manifold) and avoid any chance of juice (from the bubbling as the juice doesn't fume) entering my pump. This works great BTW. The problem is the lid was not thick enough to avoid deflection under sustained hard vacuum for the length of time required for wood stabilization. Don't waste your money on cheap vacuum chambers. I switched to tempered glass and problem solved. The price difference wasn't that much. Or, I believe, you could use polymer or acrylic with a greater thickness; say one inch for a 5 gallon tank. But that is just my opinion.
Thank you Curtis for the help,
Lloyd Snyder
Atlanta, GA. USA