Stabilizing "high end woods"??

E

Eriksen

Joined
Sep 18, 2005
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I read on a web site that high end woods require longer stabilizing time then low end woods. Which kind of wood is low end and which is high end?
At the moment I have Amboyna burl and Pernambuco in the vacuum chamber. Is that high end wood?
 
Low end and high end are not the best terms for the question.

Softer woods allow the resin to penetrate faster. Examples are maple walnut, and sycamore.
Harder woods are denser, and the resin takes longer to penetrate. Examples are ebony, blackwood, desert ironwood.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Low end and high end are not the best terms for the question.

Softer woods allow the resin to penetrate faster. Examples are maple walnut, and sycamore.
Harder woods are denser, and the resin takes longer to penetrate. Examples are ebony, blackwood, desert ironwood.
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OK. Does it also require longer vacuumizing process or only longer penetrating process after the releasing of the vacuum?
 
The softer, more open pore type woods are what's used for home stabilizing. Great success with those type woods. Dense small pore woods like Stacy mentioned, Rosewoods, etc are not at all suitable for home stabilizing. They don't really benefit stabilizing. Per the owner of Cactus Juice even Black Walnut isn't a good wood for home stabilizing as it just doesn't soak up much resin. K&G does a great job with Black Walnut.

For the denser woods (not Rosewood, ebony, etc), yes, you'll have to pull a vacuum longer, then soak MUCH longer, perhaps a day or so to get as much resin as possible.
 
Ken H> said:
The softer, more open pore type woods are what's used for home stabilizing. Great success with those type woods. Dense small pore woods like Stacy mentioned, Rosewoods, etc are not at all suitable for home stabilizing. They don't really benefit stabilizing. Per the owner of Cactus Juice even Black Walnut isn't a good wood for home stabilizing as it just doesn't soak up much resin. K&G does a great job with Black Walnut.

For the denser woods (not Rosewood, ebony, etc), yes, you'll have to pull a vacuum longer, then soak MUCH longer, perhaps a day or so to get as much resin as possible.
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Another person from a facebook group told that Amboyna burl needs at least a week under 120 psi pressure to get soaked through or a month without pressure.
Is that right?
 
I have no experience with Amboyna burl - does it sink in fresh water? Or, float just barely above water? As expensive as a good piece of Amboyna burl is I'd have K&G so do the stabilizing. Not some home stabilizing system. I do some Cactus Juice stabilizing with good results, 100% penetration and finished product normally sinking in water, or barely floating.
 
Ken H> said:
I have no experience with Amboyna burl - does it sink in fresh water? Or, float just barely above water? As expensive as a good piece of Amboyna burl is I'd have K&G so do the stabilizing. Not some home stabilizing system. I do some Cactus Juice stabilizing with good results, 100% penetration and finished product normally sinking in water, or barely floating.
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Question that I asked elsewhere with no response. Like 10 yrs ago, several owners of CRK Mnandi's (which I collect) complained to CRK that their knives with ivory or light mammoth scales (stabilized), when the knives were carried in the 5th pocket of jeans, leeched some of the blue dye. I saw the photos.
CRK either replaced or somehow cleaned these knives. My question: how did stabilized ivory/mammoth absorb dye? Oh, yes, I know CRK does not use these materials anymore.
 
Stabilizing does not make the wood or ivory completely impermeable, it makes it so it won't absorb the water into the wood and make it swell. You can soak a block of stabilized wood in water and set it on end on a paper towel and the water will slowly run out the pores.

I don't know about the CRK situation, but the dye from jeans should be stable and the ivory should not have had any active chemicals that would dissolve the dye. I suspect some sort of solvent-based stabilization experiment or improperly done stabilizing on that material.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Stabilizing does not make the wood or ivory completely impermeable, it makes it so it won't absorb the water into the wood and make it swell. You can soak a block of stabilized wood in water and set it on end on a paper towel and the water will slowly run out the pores.

I don't know about the CRK situation, but the dye from jeans should be stable and the ivory should not have had any active chemicals that would dissolve the dye. I suspect some sort of solvent-based stabilization experiment or improperly done stabilizing on that material.
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I think it was more simple than that. Jeans are dyed with Indigo, which is soaked into the fibers of cotton. I think the simple abrasion between the material and the pocket produced indigo dye dust and cotton fibers.
 
If this is from jeans that are worn on a hot day with heavy physical there should be lots of sweating. I know my jeans sometimes will by wet with salt water from sweat, that will do interesting things to a dye sometimes.
 
I just watched an episode of "the world according to Jeff goldbloom" where they were talking to the Levi's R&D department.
Indigo is a weird dye, it basically just clings to the outside of the fiber. That's why jeans wear the way they do. The color can be worn off without damaging the fibers...
 
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