Easy and cheap way to stabilize scales

15 years ago I played with Minwax Wood Hardener and a food save to try and stabilize. I couldn't get anything like good results. No one else did either that I recall.

A few years ago I took another run at it and got a 2 stage vac pump and made a couple chambers (pressure paint pots in 1 gal and 5 gal) that held vacuum decently and could take at least a 75lbs of pressure. There are several good brands of acrylic based stabilizer out there now that were not available even ten years ago that work as well as any of the commercial services. It's the process that is hard and expensive to duplicate on a small scale but it can be done. (disclaimer, I sell Cactus Juice but I'm not trying to shill it here)

If someone says you can't get as good results home stabilizing as a commercial service ( I have used at least 5 of them more than once) , I respectfully disagree. It does take some experimentation and a few pieces of equipment. If someone says its easier and more cost effective to send it out to a commercial service, I absolutely agree.

A couple things...Pull a vacuum for at least a couple hours continuously. You can also give it some pressure but I've not been able to prove that works like a vacuum. Some woods will be thoroughly saturated in a couple hours, some will take a lot longer. This is kind of trial and error and you have to destructive test to find out penetration. Most of these fluoresce so you can use a black light to see penetration. When your blocks are fully saturated, wrap them tightly in aluminum foil to prevent the liquid from seeping back out during the cure. Bake at 210F for at least an hour and let them cool completely before unwrapping. If it didn't catalyze properly, the temp in your oven is off a bit. Increase 10F and try and again.

One question might be: Is it worth your time? You could make the argument that making a knife is time costly and it is easier to just buy it. It's a personal decision really. In some cases it is a business decision where a full time maker like Karl can make better income spending his time making knives vs stabilizing wood.

The pen turning guys (and there are way more of them than knife makers) really opened up this market for us. Many (most?) routinely stabilize their own wood for pens.

In my case, I have the equipment to do stabilizing on a modest scale but it's still more cost and time effective to have it stabilized for me before I get it for resale.

I am confident stabilizing can be done "at home" with some time and $300 to $400 in tools (vac pump, chambers, fittings, oven) as well as any commercial service. It is time consuming, a bit smelly (depending on the juice) and can be dangerous. More than one stabilizer has had a fire. Glass chambers not made for vacuum implode. Some of the stabilizers are modestly toxic, some are not. I think you can even do it with a food saver vac, small pieces of wood and plenty of soak time to get full penetration. I found it personally interesting to learn and test the "home made" process. I think it's a skill that is good to have but maybe it's not always economical to use.
 
I agree with those that say they want to do it for themselves...do as much of the process as possible is part of the "zen" for some of us. I am doing knife making with my grade 7 students. This year I got knife blanks from a knife maker and the students went out and hand sawed spalted maple for handles. When they found quality pieces I traded them for spalted maple I had that was dry. They cut their scales and we sent them to K&G for stabilization. I also had the grade 6 students find and cut spalted maple that is drying and they will use their own wood for their knives next year. Shane Alexander is coming in another week to make sheaths with us. The kids have done some of the process. They get some of what it takes to make a knife...but not all of it.

I looked pretty closely at stabilization because I have access to an industrial vacuum through the high school and could do the process there. But in the end, I figured for the work, hassle, and unknown of how good a job we could do, it was going to be better to send it off to K&G.

Definitely not cheaper or completely easy, but if you want to do "all" of the process then go for it.
 
You'll have more complete penetration faster if you use a 4 stage process. It takes a little more equipment and setup time but if you're going to go all in and do it yourself this is the superior way.

Place the wood in the vacuum chamber, no stabilizing agent. Pull vacuum, allow vacuum to settle for approximately 10 minutes (denser wood require a bit more).

One the wood has had time to vent, pull in the stabilizing agent through an input port. I rate limit this as well so that it outgasses as it comes in vs the violent bubbling that can happen if done too fast (thus getting junk into your vacuum filter for no reason) Let this sit under full vacuum for the alotted time (this depends on the wood being used).

Then allow to slowly bleed down to ambient. The you will see increased penetration using this method, allow to sit at ambient for a short while (I think I have 20 minutes programmed in currently, this seemed to be a good middle ground for all woods).

Next - Inject pressure into the tank - I found about 60psi to be sufficient and again allow to sit at pressure for about the same amount of time as at vacuum. You will again see increased penetration and fill in cross sections under a scope.

Finally, the pieces should be wrapped during cure to prevent too much material from migrating out the the surface. Cure temp and time depends on the material in use.

I worked out these processes originally for wood working chisel handles. There were noticeable performance differences between early and late processes as I experimented. With the final process you could cut mortise joints with a 3lbs hammer with a handle made out of burl (not baby taps, I was hitting them as hard as I could). The wood would burnish slightly but once the burnishing was complete there was no other marring during the testing. At one point I left a junk chisel embedded in a block of ash and hit it 5 or so times every time I went past it for a week. I had to cut the chisel out of the wood it was embedded so deep but the handle held up without issue. In fact I just used to to cut the mortises on the bed project I'm working on (its going on 6 years old now)

This is a bit more than the posted method, but you can achieve this with equipment purchased from harbor freight and your local plumbing store depending on how involved you want to get. Mine became fully automated but I have a toy box full of solenoids and integrated electronics equipment.

I guess it just depends on what "home processing" means to you. Mines done in my basement and cost less than $200 to accomplish, but I have some pretty good contacts to find surplus equipment.
 
Sounds like a very interesting method as as far as a DIY project goes, it sounds pretty doable for not that much expense for a small production operation.

I understand I can either buy product that's already been stabilized or have it done, but if I can do it myself without too much expense, I'd just as soon give it a go. The whole point for me is the experience as much as the outcome.
 
I just had enough wood stabilized for 12 knife handles and it cost me $58 including shipping from KandG. $200 plus cost of cactus juice buys a lot of knife handles if you are DIY.
 
On the Turntex site it says you can place your blanks in an oven at 215° F (101° C) for 24 hours to be sure the moisture content is below 10%. Just do that
 
Randydb said:
I just had enough wood stabilized for 12 knife handles and it cost me $58 including shipping from KandG. $200 plus cost of cactus juice buys a lot of knife handles if you are DIY.
Click to expand...

That is right - $200 will professionally stabilize thirty to forty knife handles better than the cactus juice, and you can spend the time making $3000-$5000 in knives instead of making a couple hundred bucks of so-so quality handle material.
 
Mike_ said:
Sounds like a very interesting method as as far as a DIY project goes, it sounds pretty doable for not that much expense for a small production operation.

I understand I can either buy product that's already been stabilized or have it done, but if I can do it myself without too much expense, I'd just as soon give it a go. The whole point for me is the experience as much as the outcome.
Click to expand...

x2 plus it costs a fortune to ship where I libe. 23$ just to ship baby mitts ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top