How do you address wood scale shrinkage and preventing it?

[Sitcomdad83]

Got a a wright snakewood Wharncliffe. I've heard snakewood can be troublesome. My scales have shrunk and pins are more pronounced. Is snakewood more prone to structural issues? What if anything can I do to address shrinkage other than to treat wood occasionally. What wood is best for using in wet or humid conditions.

 

[J. Doyle]

Got a a wright snakewood Wharncliffe. I've heard snakewood can be troublesome. My scales have shrunk and pins are more pronounced. Is snakewood more prone to structural issues? What if anything can I do to address shrinkage other than to treat wood occasionally. What wood is best for using in wet or humid conditions.

Some kind of conditioner/oil is about all you can do. I like Howard's Feed 'N Wax. It's a combination of orange oil and beeswax. A lot of furniture makers use it to recondition wood. It's pretty common for wood to change with the seasons and it might go back and forth from winter to summer.

No wood is immune to expansion/contraction in varying climates, even stabilized wood though some will try to claim that.

The most stable wood I've ever used (and I use a LOT of different species regularly) is African blackwood. It is by far the most stable wood I've worked with, even more than desert ironwood and other stable Rosewoods.