Stabilize cypress wood

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sharkeater

Joined
Mar 30, 2024
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I’m a new knife maker and have been asked by an old teammate to make a few small waterfowl themed knives with cypress handles to give clients. His side hustle is guiding waterfowl hunts in NC. His company name is Cypress Arrows Outdoors. From research I know cypress is NOT ideal for a knife handles due to gluing issues from cypress sap. Any recommendations for stabilizing? I have a vacuum and pressure kit which works decent enough with other woods. In my simple mind, dry to as close to 0% as possible. Run them through stabilization processes with water (or recommended solution) and drying multiple times to wash out as much sap and residue as possible. Yes, sounds like a whole lot of work for a questionable wood. Thoughts? Recommendations?
 
You will probably get more quality on your answers if you post in the Shop Talk part of the forum, that's where the answers get more technical. You could repost there or flag this thread and ask a mod to move it. If I was working making handles out of Cypress, I would try running it through kiln first or maybe going for a flame char and sanding on the outside to get the sap away from the surface. I don't have a commercial grade vacuum kit so I can't stabilize, but if I did I would try running it through a straight vacuum to see if I could get the sap to migrate to the surface so I could remove it. Mineral spirit can have some strange effects on wood, so in the interest of What the Hell, Let's Give It a Whirl, try a test chunk in a bath and see if that helps. It'll probably mess with either the color or the strength of the wood, but stabilizing will also change color and help with strength.

Hopefully someone who has actually worked Cypress this way will be along, or you will have to get your mad scientist on. I don't suppose the client would be okay with wood dyed Cypress Green using a nice, reasonable White Oak? Not a lot of people geek out on wood identification by grain and color, but everybody who sees a Cypress knows the color of the foliage. Make him a swanky arrow medallion that matches his business card to inset, and distract him with a shiny too. It works on me. Good Luck!
 
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