How to stabilize wood?

S

shortvet

Joined
Mar 25, 2005
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2
Does anyone out there have or mind sharing the process of stabilizing woods used for handle material. If you're going to share would you include the process and the chemicals that you use. Thanks
 
There are several threads in existance,
do a search,
there was just on in the knifemaker's area about a month ago.
 
The process is easy.Take your block of wood -the larger ,the better. Put it in a box and sent it to Mike Ludderman at WSSI. In a few weeks it will be properly stabilized.
There is no good way to economically stabilize wood at home.This subject has been beat to death on this forum lately.Basically,stabilizing your own wood is about as sensible as alloying your own steel.You might be able to do it,but the results will always be second rate,if not totally poor.
Welcome to bladeforums - Stacy
 
just send it to K&G they will take care of it!
Don't send it to WSSI i have a friend who sent them $2500 worth of redwood burl that did not get done corrrectly . when it was returned it was not fully penetrated with resin . you could still use it but you have to "Super Glue " finnish it . Same king of wood at K&G was fully penetrated and did not need a superglue finnish . I don't understand why everyone say's WSSI and none for K&G? Ken Mcfall has been doing wood longer than Mike Ludeman anyway so why not send your wood to the guy with more years stabilizing wood ?

Im not trying to bash anyone here ! i feel it is important people know this stuff . and yes i can Prove what im saying !
 
the other side of the question. most exotic woods DO NOT require stabalization and are a waste of money even trying to have them commercially stabalized. a great number of other woods only require standard woodworking finishes. soft woods ,some burls ,and other misc. woods being turned into plastic is fine if it is what you or your customer really wants.
 
Shakudo said:
t........... soft woods ,some burls ,and other misc. woods being turned into plastic is fine if it is what you or your customer really wants.
Click to expand...

It's hardly turned into plastic. Acrylic is simply forced into areas of the wood formerly occupied by air. It's not alchemy!!

How much wood have you had stabilized?
 
in most professional stabalizers,the wood is vacummed and pressurized to accept 2-3 times the original woods weight with either monomers or polymers.if that is the case ,it is no longer wood,but a plastic. i don't stabalize my wood products with artificial plastics as they were not around 200 years ago and my customers do not want modern plastic goods.

plastic
 
Shakudo said:
in most professional stabalizers,the wood is vacummed and pressurized to accept 2-3 times the original woods weight with either monomers or polymers.if that is the case ,it is no longer wood,but a plastic. i don't stabalize my wood products with artificial plastics as they were not around 200 years ago and my customers do not want modern plastic goods.

plastic
Click to expand...
Funny, I've never had my wood gain 2-3 times it's original weight. I guess if you stabilized balsa wood it might.

If you don't like stabilized wood, that's fine, but why come here and knock it for those that do.

Of course it wasn't available 200 years ago, but neither were band aids, or antibiotics, or automobiles, bra's, or belt grinders, sneakers, or even good steel, plus a thousand and one other things.
I fail to see what the past has to do with stabilizing, unless you're one of those that wants to take us all back to those bad ol' days.
 
Mike,you might want to go back and read post #7 and the quote that was put there from my original post. if you had read it.....i said it was up to the maker and customer what materials were used, a real simple concept.
 
I have used both stabilizing companies and from my own experience would favor K&G. I feel they did the best job.
I now stabilize my own wood. I use a Loctite product called Resinol 90C. I have a good vaccume system that pulls a very high vaccume and a very strong pressure chamber that allows me to put a very high air pressure on the wood after it has been in the vaccume.
If you don't have a good vaccume pump I don't think you will get very good results with the 90C.
The Resinol 90C which is heat activated used to cost $300.00 for four gallons. Thats a lot of money but it lasts a long time.
I have been very happy with the results. This is not for everyone. If you don't need a lot of wood stabilized I would recomend sending it to K&G. I was spending several hundred dollars a year on stabilizing and decided to do it myself.
If you do a search there have been lots of threads on this topic over the last several years.
 
We've compared finished wood from the major stabilizing companies. We've also done side by side tests with customers, asking which stabilized wood they preferred. After these experiences and testing we chose to use WSSI.
 
Same here,after comparing, I chose WSSI.I used to use K&G exclusively,but after an expensive batch was ruined (The whole batch came back black and burnt - It was unusable -and they still charged me for it),with lots of different excuses and no explanation or apology,I chose WSSI.

BTW,redwood burl and thuya are hard to get a good stabilization on.They often come back sticky,and have to be set on the shelf for about 6 months to weep out the extra oils and resin.
 
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