Benzotriazole, PEG (Polyetilen Glycol), Paraloid etc...

galadduin

galadduin

Joined
Dec 25, 2004
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My neighbour (the man borrowed me his Digi-Cam) owns a wood working company, imports exotic woods and builds furniture (means for most of you I am a lucky guy). Today he brings me two different pieces of wood. Both of them are beautiful. He doesnt know their original name. They are hard and heavy, in nice color and pattern.

But I dont know how stabilise them as I dont want to send them out to be stabilised. The Minwax W. Hardener is not available in my country. I took a couple restoration courses in my archaeology education. As I remember the material used in wood restoration in museums were BTA, PEG 4000 and Paraloid B-72. At least PEG is readily available for me. Does it do the job???
I can get excessive amount of teak and other exoctic woods if I want but I have to be sure I can process the slabs properly...
 
I can only comment on PEG. It is not what you want to stablize any kind of knife scales. It is a waxy, greasy mess. It is most often used for wood carving to keep wood from drying out and cracking while carving or panels.
 
It would be beter to use them unstabilized,and to finish with wood filler and a good oil finish.Ask your neighbor how he finishes the wood .Home stabilizing (usually with the wrong components ) gives poor results.I highly recomend sending them to a stabilizer.There are some in Europe.
 
B-72 is great stuff. Works well on antler (probably bone) with home vacuum methods. I never got it to work well with wood.

Steve
 
Steve, could you please repost that link where you got the B72 as a solid? Thanks! :)
 
I have tried to read most of the posts on home stabalizing. I think it is the consensus that the wood hardener is spar polyurethane (polyurethane) that is thinned with acetone. Here is a link that explains the process that I have tried with pretty good results. Worth a try if professional stabilizing is not an option. Good luck!
 
bladsmth said:
It would be beter to use them unstabilized,and to finish with wood filler and a good oil finish.Ask your neighbor how he finishes the wood .Home stabilizing (usually with the wrong components ) gives poor results.I highly recomend sending them to a stabilizer.There are some in Europe.
Click to expand...

I asked him, he uses a thin layer of teak oil on finished furniture. I tried and the contrast of veins hace been significant. But when I sand the slab it is vanished. I left one piece for 2 days in the teak oil and there was no change. The oil doesnt penetrate in normal conditions. May be I'll finish the scale then I will oil it. Done, looking good but inside there is no protection. I asked my neighbour he doesnt know any proffesional stabilizer, even he is not aware of this process... Thanks for the replies....
 
I asked him in an other way, I said "I want to find a method to penetrate the wood and protect from athmospheric conditions, chemicals etc." That way he understood what I want to do and he told me a method that he used to do when he was working in docks. For some wooden parts they stabilised them by :

First a dry and clean part is boiled in water for couple of hours until it gets soft. He said a pressure cooker may be used to reduce the time to boil.

Then the part is removed from water and hang vertical. It is important he said, if it is hang horisontal or laid onto something, all the process may fail.
You dont let it dry and get hard. Just it seems dry but it must be soft for the next process.

You get a thin oil, preferably teak oil and then heat the oil with the part inside. He didnt mention of temprature but I remember he said so hot that the part wont reach in its use (meaning more than 100 C - water boiling point). He said that way you force the water to evaporate and the remaining space is replaced by oil creating a vacuum inside. He said wooden parts prepared this way wont be affected from anything. It wont even in the dishwasher.

I think I will try it. I know he is very experienced carpenter and in this trade his advises seem to worth a try.
 
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