Spalted Oak

[DrHenley]

Yes, one of the sample pieces that my friend is going to use Cactus Juice on was glued back together. Too bad you can't use Elmer's Wood Glue to stabilize wood. Heat resistant and UV resistant.

Are you planning on stabilizing/using these pieces? If so, let me know how they turn out. I never would have considered trying this.

For the most part it worked wonderfully, but when I shaped the scales, I found some voids in the Elmers. When the pieces came apart, I lost some material that was practically just powder in the fissure that separated, and was hoping the Elmers would fill those. Looking back I should have mixed some powdered sawdust with the Elmers to fill those. Also I had hoped that any voids would be filled with Cactus Juice. I guess the voids, being surrounded by wood glue, could not take up the Cactus Juice. I refilled those voids at the surface with Elmers and then sanded it down..

 

[Ken H>]

A number of pieces came apart after baking. Elmer's Wood Glue is marvelous stuff LOL.

Yes, Elmer's wood glue is really good for gluing wood. I'm not too sure how well it will seal the scale to metal for long term use. Remember, the epoxy (glue) used to "glue" scales to a tang are more for sealing water entrance than actually attaching scale to the tang. Attaching the scale to the tang is handled by the pins used. With that said, I've used epoxy to glue scale to a test tang and a few days later the wood scale would be destroyed trying to knock scale off tang with a hammer. There would using be places on tang where the wood failed rather than epoxy wood/metal bond.

We'd LOVE to see more photos of the stages of knife build using the spalted oak. Here is a handle I did using Spalted Oak with Cactus Juice stabilizing. After stabilizing this wood would sink in water, as it should. A good test for stabilizing is if wood sinks, or at most just barely floats with top even with water. If it floats proud of water, it's not stabilized very good.

 

[DrHenley]

I glued one set of scales using Elmers Wood Glue just as a test, but went back to using epoxy after that. I like the water cleanup with the wood glue. I will do more testing and do some torture tests including how well it stands up to heat.

 

[DrHenley]

Well, Elmer's and epoxy do not play well together. The epoxy dissolved some of the Elmer's, which caused a number of problems which you might be able to spot in the picture.

The Cactus Juice stablized spalted oak, however, is a resounding success!

 

[Ken H>]

WOW!! That is one pretty piece of wood! Sand it clean, then with CA glue sand good to allow the sanding dust to fill that large groove and you might be surprised how well the groove blends in.

I say again - NICE!

 

[milkbaby]

That turned out really nice. The starting material had a lot of character, so not surprising.

Wood glue is great for gluing wood to wood, but it's supposed to be used for pieces that fit together tightly, not so great for gap filling. CA/superglue works good for small cracks/checks, epoxy for larger voids. Some people like mixing in sawdust from the same piece with the epoxy, some people like adding an epoxy dye (in this case I think black would look good and complement the spalt), and sometimes it looks really cool just clear. Stabilizing resin like Cactus Juice usually doesn't do much filling as you found out.

 

[DrHenley]

This one is just a test piece (on a test knife) and will pretty much stay like it is. I won't try to stabilize any more of the pieces that have fissures, I have plenty that don't. Now that I know the secret of what to look for, I will try to locate more. Hell, I have 400 acres of oak trees in the Mississippi Delta, so I have no shortage of raw material.- I foresee a trip to Mississippi in my near future...