Stabilize or not?

D

DukeHarley

Joined
Apr 11, 2014
Messages
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I managed to pick up a nice slab of Cumaru burl and it was awesome when I started cutting blocks out of it. Have any of you guys used this wood at all and does it need to be stabilized? I did some reading up on it and they say it's pretty dense and oily.

Jay
 
The dense oily ones usually don't take stabilizing well .Best then to just polish the wood or remove the oil with acetone and wax it.
 
Cumaru is a pretty dense wood. I don't know if I ever saw any burl wood of that type, but the regular wood is similar to teak or lignum vitae in working, and is great for high wear purposes like flooring. I would think it would not be good to stabilize,....or need it.
 
Stacy, why did you put "teak" and "lignum vitae" in the same comparison? Teak as a Specific Gravity (12% MC) of .66 and a Janka Hardness of 1,070 lbf, while lignum vitae has a Specific Gravity (12% MC) of 1.26 and a Janka Hardness of 4,390 lbf?

I've worked with teak for years and always considered it a fairly soft wood - it does dull cutting tools due to the silica content. The little bit I've worked with lignum vitae it's been HARD wood that works totally different than teak. I would never consider lignum vitae as needing stabilizing - I doubt even K&G could do much with stabilizing that wood.

Tell me about stabilizing teak wood - will it stabilize? I know it's really rot resistance and doesn't soak up water very well, which makes it perfect for boat work.

Thanks in advance for a followup on this. All of us look to Stacy for a little known info.

Ken H>
 
Ok thank you guy! Stacy this stuff cuts and feels ALMOST as hard and dense as Ironwood. I was able to get 3 pieces out of this one slab that are 1.0 x 2.4 x 13.0 and has lots of eyes in it. There are no visible checks or voids in this stuff. The guy I got it from said it sat on the shelf for a few years so I figure I'll just set it in a dry place for a year before I even consider using it.

Here is a pic of it.
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Beautiful wood! I've finished one in unstabilized Cumaru and it didn't even need Danish oil etc to polish/buff up really nice.
 
That looks like really nice burl. I bet it will polish with just sanding to 1000 grit and a quick buff.

As I said, the cumaru I have used was just the straight grain (probably was scraps from flooring wood). I am sure the burl is far denser.

My comparison was to give the workability of the wood, not a similarity of look or quality.

I don't like working teak because it is slow to abrade away in sanding, and frankly looks pretty blah. The tough sanding is why I thought of it as a comparison. The teak I have used for a few things ( not knives) has been pretty heavy. IIRC, cumaru is sold as flooring under the name Brazilian Teak.

Lignum vitae is much closer to what cumaru was like to work with - Hard and dense.

As I recall, cumaru burned easily in sanding at the finer grits if the grinder was not slowed down.

You can ask Mark or one of the stabilizer folks, but in my opinion none of these woods will stabilize well.
 
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