Does anyone stabilize their own wood?

razormaker

razormaker

Joined
Mar 6, 2015
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I'm thinking of trying to stabilize some wood for handles. What kind of equipment does it take? How steep is the learning curve?

If not too difficult or expensive to get in to there would be more options for the buyer.

Thanks
 
razormaker said:
I'm thinking of trying to stabilize some wood for handles. What kind of equipment does it take? How steep is the learning curve?

If not too difficult or expensive to get in to there would be more options for the buyer.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I've tried lots of various stabilizers and the end result from the big names really is quite different. We talk so highly of them you'd think they are paying us, but I assure you, they don't. It's just a great service they offer and to try and recreate it at home is not economically feasible. The post that he linked to has some good knowledge, and I weigh in on this one often because I have tried the cactus juice and others. They just don't work like the big companies end result. I have a block done in cactus juice and K&G and they even look different.
 
Viral - what is kind of wood is the Cactus Juice? I've done some wood that's really porous with Cactus Juice that works good, while other wood doesn't work so good. K&G 'n WSSI seem to be able to do most any wood and make it really good. Properly done, stabilized wood has the resin just as thick in center of wood as close to edges - and will sink in fresh water.

Ken H>
 
Ken H> said:
Viral - what is kind of wood is the Cactus Juice? I've done some wood that's really porous with Cactus Juice that works good, while other wood doesn't work so good. K&G 'n WSSI seem to be able to do most any wood and make it really good. Properly done, stabilized wood has the resin just as thick in center of wood as close to edges - and will sink in fresh water.

Ken H>
Click to expand...

Ken,
I sent some spalted maple and partially spalted sweet gum. Both were pretty solid yet. That's just my experience, it didn't seem to be as solid as the K&G. What have you had good results with when using cactus juice?
 
Time is money and its worth every penny to have K&G stabilize my stuff. There MAY be some that do as good a job as K&G but NOBODY does a better job.
 
While I don't have near the experience with knifemaking and stabilized woods Darrin has, I agree with him 100%. K&G does a GREAT job of stabilizing, and it seems like they can do almost any wood.

Viral, I've done spalted pecan and a couple other spalted woods. It's not the spalted part, but the wood MUCH be very porous, which will make it very light (floats high in water). These do seem to stabilize good with Cactus Juice. I tried to do some Black Walnut (good solid wood) but it didn't take up much resin at all (I know it's not true "resin", but that's just an easy way of saying it). I talked with Curtis of Cactus Juice and he says Cactus Juice does work very good with Black Walnut. I did a piece of leather, boy it worked GOOD!!! Really soaked the resin up and cured really good.

One of the guides I use for wood, if it sinks in fresh water, doesn't need stabilizing, if it floats in water after stabilizing, didn't stabilize properly. If it sinks after stabilizing, good job.

Ken H>
 
If you do it yourself the easiest woods are maple, ash and box elder.
But with what it would take to get started you could have had a couple hundred blocks stabilized by K&G and still come out ahead financially.

One thing that nobody talks about are that many woods can be difficult because of oils in the wood.
Not meaning rosewood, but woods like walnut and redwood can be difficult as well.
If the wood gives off any smell when cutting or sanding it will be a difficult one for DIY stabilizing.
 
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