let's talk about stabilizing

koyote

koyote

Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
5,846
People keep talking about it, and I've used some, but I'm not sure a: how far you need to go or b: if you need to do it at all!

I have several of my knives done in natural woods with tung or linseed oil finishes, a couple that I've done with minwax wood hardener applied thick on nice hot days, sanded, and reapplied, then finished. And a couple purchased stabilized pieces.

So, what's the deal? How important is this? my oil finishes seem to be holding up okay, the exterior wood hardened one I use every day is fine, too.

I've seen several methods for doing stabilizing at home, several shops doing it, but do I *need* it? and on what woods?
 
I think you need it on a lot of woods. It won't work on any oily woods like snakewood or cocobola.
 
Stabilizing is best done for woods that are too soft to be used on knives. Calif Buckeye Burl is prime example. Befor stabilizing, you can whittle it with your thumb nail. Sifter woods benefit from it, harder woods don't need it, really hard woods can't be done. They are too dense.

There are a lot of backyard recipes for stabilizing. Some work, but none can compete with a professional job.

Ken McFall at K&G spent $50,000 on his setup. The wood is placed in a vacuum chamber filled with the required chemicals. After drawing a vacuum for, IIRC, 6 hours, the chamber is then pressurized at 4,000psi. You just can't match that at home.

I've had woods done by WSSI, K&G and one other outfit. I won't count Elliott Glasser's system, it's a backyard job. As reasonably priced as it is to have something stabilized I can't see a good reason not to send that really cherry piece off and have it done professionally.

If there was a really good method to do it in the shop, I would. I sell woods and send 40-50 lbs at a time to be stabilized. I could save a pile of money. So far I haven't seen anything that comes close to having it done professionally.

My 2 cents worth.

Gene
 
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