Marshal problem with Liquid Templates

console_output.rb

# rails console

1.9.3p194 :017 > Part
 => Part(id: integer, name: string, liquid_source: text, template_source: text, created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime)

1.9.3p194 :018 > p = Part.first

1.9.3p194 :019 > p.liquid_source
 => "Hello {{name}}"

1.9.3p194 :020 > p.liquid_source.encoding
=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
1.9.3p194 :021 > p.template_source = Marshal.dump(Liquid::Template.parse(p.liquid_source)).force_encoding('UTF-8')
=> "\u0004\bo:\u0015Liquid::Template\u0006:\n@rooto:\u0015Liquid::Document\u0006:\u000E@nodelist[\aI\"\vHello \u0006:\u0006ETo:\u0015Liquid::Variable\b:\f@markupI\"\tname\u0006;\tT:\n@nameI\"\tname\u0006;\tT:\r@filters[\u0000"
# Notice the `\u0000` at the end

1.9.3p194 :022 > p.template
=> #<Liquid::Template:0x007ff7dd769288 @root=#<Liquid::Document:0x007ff7dd769210 @nodelist=["Hello ", #<Liquid::Variable:0x007ff7dd769120 @markup="name", @name="name", @filters=[]>]>>

1.9.3p194 :023 > p.save
=> true

1.9.3p194 :024 > p.reload.template
  Part Load (1.0ms)  SELECT "parts".* FROM "parts" WHERE "parts"."id" = $1 LIMIT 1  [["id", 1]]
ArgumentError: marshal data too short
  from /Users/tesla/code/templates/app/models/part.rb:9:in `load'
  from /Users/tesla/code/templates/app/models/part.rb:9:in `template'
  from (irb):24
  from /Users/tesla/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/railties-3.2.8/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:47:in `start'
  from /Users/tesla/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/railties-3.2.8/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:8:in `start'
  from /Users/tesla/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/railties-3.2.8/lib/rails/commands.rb:41:in `<top (required)>'
  from script/rails:6:in `require'
  from script/rails:6:in `<main>'

1.9.3p194 :025 > p.template_source
=> "\u0004\bo:\u0015Liquid::Template\u0006:\n@rooto:\u0015Liquid::Document\u0006:\u000E@nodelist[\aI\"\vHello \u0006:\u0006ETo:\u0015Liquid::Variable\b:\f@markupI\"\tname\u0006;\tT:\n@nameI\"\tname\u0006;\tT:\r@filters["

# Notice the `\u0000` at the end is missing!

1.9.3p194 :028 > Marshal.load(p.template_source + "\u0000")
 => #<Liquid::Template:0x007ff7dd6b48b0 @root=#<Liquid::Document:0x007ff7dd6b4838 @nodelist=["Hello ", #<Liquid::Variable:0x007ff7dd6b4748 @markup="name", @name="name", @filters=[]>]>> 

part.rb

class Part < ActiveRecord::Base
  def render(opts = {})
    template.render opts
  end

  def template
    @template ||= Marshal.load(template_source.force_encoding('utf-8'))
  end
end

I'm currently having the same problem except I can't save the marshaled template to MySQL since I get a "invalid byte sequence in UTF-8" type of error. I narrowed it down to the template field. Was wondering if you figured out how to force the utf-8 encoding upon marshaling?

Thanks,
Bill