Should all knife handle wood be stabilized?

I have used red oak, white oak and walnut on kitchen knives for the past few years. Not acrylized. What is the best way to seal the handle scales after final sanding?
 
I have been doing a research paper with the professors at Purdue Univ. at the School of Wood Science. Our first section of this research has been stabilizing in a home environment with Cactus Juice.
We have done controlled experiments with over 100 blocks of wood and 11 different domestic species. As many have stated before, not all woods need to be stabilized. We have found,
to this point, that maple and walnut has had the best results while the oak families have benefited the least.
In cut, weight, and hardness tests, we have also found that the moisture content of these woods also effected the "impregnation" of the woods. With walnut for example, we used blocks that
were 16%, 13%, 10%, 6% and 0%. The amount of resin retained in the blocks correlated with the excess moisture content. e.g. more moisture, less resin impregnation.
The difference from 16% to 0% was an increase of over 20% resin retained while the hardness went up 30%.
This has not been the exact result from all woods tested so far, this is just an example of one with the greatest amount of movement tied to moisture contents.
Hopefully by April or May, we will be publishing our findings and help others with statistical data. This will help many of us that don't know which woods benefit greater by stabilizing.
Troy
 
PoolQs said:
I have been doing a research paper with the professors at Purdue Univ. at the School of Wood Science. Our first section of this research has been stabilizing in a home environment with Cactus Juice.
We have done controlled experiments with over 100 blocks of wood and 11 different domestic species. As many have stated before, not all woods need to be stabilized. We have found,
to this point, that maple and walnut has had the best results while the oak families have benefited the least.
In cut, weight, and hardness tests, we have also found that the moisture content of these woods also effected the "impregnation" of the woods. With walnut for example, we used blocks that
were 16%, 13%, 10%, 6% and 0%. The amount of resin retained in the blocks correlated with the excess moisture content. e.g. more moisture, less resin impregnation.
The difference from 16% to 0% was an increase of over 20% resin retained while the hardness went up 30%.
This has not been the exact result from all woods tested so far, this is just an example of one with the greatest amount of movement tied to moisture contents.
Hopefully by April or May, we will be publishing our findings and help others with statistical data. This will help many of us that don't know which woods benefit greater by stabilizing.
Troy
Click to expand...

That's really cool. I would love to read your paper when it's done.

The results you listed have mirrored mine using Cactus Juice. Maple and walnut being the best so far for me, also buckeye burl. I have some Koa that was not too impressive grain wise that I tried, and failed miserably, I'm guessing due to moisture content, and some failures in black walnut due to moisture content as well.
 
On my own testing, I have tried Koa, Amboyna, Black Palm, Teak, Birch, and Lacewood with little to no effect from the Cactus Juice.
It was mostly to reinforce, to me, what others have said about these types of woods Not needing to be stabilized.
Also have found that woods with high oil contents and density such as Cocobola, ebony, redwoods, etc. also resisted stabilizing.
(If you try these last woods, be warned, your juice will no longer be able to be used again because of the oils released into the juice effecting the stabilizing processes)
Troy
 
Have you determined what exactly it is about the moisture content that prevents take up and retention of the resin? Is it an adhesion problem, or does the moisture gas off during the cure and force resin out of the wood? Outside of the fact that if moisture is present there's less seminal space for the resin to occupy.
 
We are working on that now. To this point, we know that it is a vessel issue. Different type of trees have different size vessels or pores.
Some have larger ones such as hickory and oak where as maple and walnut have smaller. When drawing out this moisture, the vessel size
changes and the strength of that cell changes also. The Prof's will be doing cut samples at the micro level in the spring.
Troy
 
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned one reason to avoid stabilizing - it adds weight. Some very nice field knives owe their light weight to their natural wood handles.
 
What about very hard and dense Beech which has been dried for many years and used as blanks on a full tange knife? Do I need to stabilize that, or will it be sufficient to have a coat with penetrating epoxy at the surface?
 
Ahould be fine, many tool handles have a beechwood handle.
Clear wax looks good on beech
 
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