Heat stabilized wood

E

elementfe

Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
1,436
A woodworker who is employed by a major musical instrument manufacturer gave me some stunning fiddleback maple cutoofs that have been stabilized with heat rather than resin saturation.
Does anyone here have experience with this material?
I'm doing some tests and it seems fine so far, but I'm very hesitant to make anything for anyone else without more knowledge.
Obviously a guitar neck with sprayed finish on it is a different kettle of fish than a cooking knife handle, but the luthier emphasizes that the wood is hydrophobic and he feels it would be suitable.
Testing, testing....
 
Are you talking about torrefied wood? I have a couple blocks of torrefied maple which I've also been hesitant to use for handles...
 
Thanks, T, I hadn't been able to find out much about this material until you introduced the term "torrefied." Lots of info from that search term, including that shipbuilders as much as a thousand years ago have used a similar process to stabilize boat lumber so that it doesn't absorb water.
Curiouser and curiouser....
 
Yeah... I was really intrigued by the sound of it and bought a block. But it's so extremely light, I'm just not confident of its durability. I should experiment with it more.
 
Is that related to the very old process of fire hardening wooden tools ? . That certainly hardens but I don't know if it makes it more water resistant.
 
The wood is "baked" at a specific temperature which removes all water and somewhat converts sugars and other resins in the wood cells to more stable things. It looks good, but I have it stabilized by K&G and it really looks good.
 
In my earliest days one difference between air vs kiln drying was that the kiln did stablize resins in knots as the finished painted wood would bleed resin from knots with pine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top