Good method for stabilizing wood?

I tried it with some pinewood.
It did get heavier, but still was very soft. I wouldn't realy trust it.
 
There truly is no "alternative" to having wood professionally stabilized. You may accomplish improving the material slightly, but the pros use equipment and material you and I can not approximate.
You could paint your car with some spray cans from the hardware store and actually change the color of it, but there's no comparison to taking it to the body shop.
You are going to spend lots of time and need to buy the hardener anyway, when to have it done right only works out to a few bucks anyway.
There's no shortcuts in knifemaking that compare to doing things right in the first place.
 
What if you have a stabalized wood knife and over time it picks up some hairline cracks.

Can you just brush on the Minwax product to fill those gaps?

Thanks
 
It depends on how you finished the handles (meaning, coat of epoxy, oil, CA, no surface treatment only sanding) as far as what to use to fill the crack. A couple applications with the minwax might help if you have nothing else on the handle for finishing.
 
gixxer said:
It depends on how you finished the handles (meaning, coat of epoxy, oil, CA, no surface treatment only sanding) as far as what to use to fill the crack. A couple applications with the minwax might help if you have nothing else on the handle for finishing.
Click to expand...

The handles are wood, stabilized with polymer. I'm thinking of using the product identified in the original post - high performance wood hardner - to renew and maintain the surface.
 
Hengelo_77 said:
I tried it with some pinewood.
It did get heavier, but still was very soft. I wouldn't realy trust it.
Click to expand...

when did you try it? and did you use the same materials/methods?
 
so Ive already got a moderate vacumm kiln that will pull 29+

whats a good material to stablize with? I make LOTS of handles and would go back to using walnut if I had a good way to harden /stablize it.

Figure I could be doing as many as 20-30 per week. They would not be scales but full handles.

Kerry Stagmer
www.baltimoreknife.com
www.fireandbrimstone.com
 
j22knife said:
The handles are wood, stabilized with polymer. I'm thinking of using the product identified in the original post - high performance wood hardner - to renew and maintain the surface.
Click to expand...
But what did you put on the handles after you shaped, mounted, and buffed them? I ask cause some put a coat of thin CA, or epoxy on the whole handle and buff it out. If you have not put anything on the handles after you finished shaping and buffing then the minwax should work. Even thickening up the stuff just a hair with acryloid B72 wouldnt hurt either.
 
I'm not sure what true stabilizing means.

For the mentioned epoxy coatings:

My boating experience comes in handy again :) West makes epoxy, and they also produce guides to use. One of the interesting things you can do with epoxy (in addition to waterproofing wood) is to saturate fir and plywood (and teak, but I dunno 'bout walnuts or really dense grained woods) and make FUEL tanks. Now, that's some pretty good stuff, eh? It works.

http://www.westsystem.com/

under "projects"
in "techniques and materials"
you'll find an article on "woods of the world adhesion testing" which has some interesting data.

The fuel tank guide is somewhere in the site, too. Or was, I dunno, I've seen it in one of their publications when I built it.

The basics, for those who don't know, are that the west epoxy is a system with different hardeners and fillers that give you different working times and results (like high UV resistance).

I guess you could mold handles completely out of it, but that'd be way off the thread topic. 105/207 ends up looking like you just oiled the wood, and is pretty hard stuff.....

I'm going to try some weldwood micarta soon, but if it doesn't make me happy, I am thinking about shredded bamboo/west micarta. Crazy? Me?
 
If "true stabilized" means you want wood like what you get from the major suppliers, then you can't really do it at home. Mike at WSSI and Ken at K&G both do a good job and use chemicals that are not home user materials. If you were to get into doing several hundred pounds a year, it might become economically feasible, but do you want to make knives or make wood? I send it all to WSSI.
Stacy
 
evillama said:
when did you try it? and did you use the same materials/methods?
Click to expand...

I tried it a few months ago.
I live in Holland, we don't have the exact same brands over here as used in the article, but I used quality stuff.
 
i just done some tiger and birdseye maple using a vacuum pump, a gallon pickle jar (with a fitting soldered to the lid) and a pringles can (almost full of minwax polyurethane) which is the right height to fit inside the jar. dont fill the can up all the way since it will foam out. leave a couple inches at the top and put a lid with a drain tube into a pill bottle to catch foamovers (which occour around 20 inches of vacuum. ductape a flexible wire handle to the can to aid removal. i have picks but i dont have any luck posting picks.
 
richard j said:
i just done some tiger and birdseye maple using a vacuum pump, a gallon pickle jar (with a fitting soldered to the lid) and a pringles can (almost full of minwax polyurethane) which is the right height to fit inside the jar. dont fill the can up all the way since it will foam out. leave a couple inches at the top and put a lid with a drain tube into a pill bottle to catch foamovers (which occour around 20 inches of vacuum. ductape a flexible wire handle to the can to aid removal. i have picks but i dont have any luck posting picks.
Click to expand...

One way to avoid the foam over is to pull your vacuum in steps. I pull to 10, wait till the foam goes away, pull till it foams, stop, pull again. Repeat the process till you get the full vacuum, and no foam over. I have to do that cause 5" blocks come up to the neck in quart mason jars so I have no choice but to fill it up almost ot the top.
 
i'm not that patient to do the steps although i did try after the first foamover.
i just pour what comes out back in when i flip the wood end for end. get a gallon pickle jar and use a pringles can since it will hold a 9" piece.
 
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