stabilizing wood to prevent color change

[Happychicken]

Hi all i have been looking this up this morning and getting some conflicting info. I always wanted to make some handles with paduak and purple heart but i have been told that they discolor rather quickly. I read that stabilizing will reduce color changing from sunlight. Hoping for some insight into how much stabilizing will help wood keep its color.
thanks again

 

[Hengelo_77]

From what I understand it is the UV light in sunlight that makes it change color and stabilizing doesn't prefent that.
Little less then keeping your knife in the dark will prefent it

 

[C_Claycomb]

Purple heart kept in a box most of the time, no light, will stay purple for decades. Just fine for a drawer queen.

these might help

Can Purpleheart be Stabilized?

I have obtained a bunch of planks and need to know if I need to have it stabilized before using it. Thanks for responses.

www.bladeforums.com

Woods For knife handles (update 2)

Hey Again guys, I made some updates and added several new woods to this, so I hope you guys enjoy and learn something new! feel free to ask me anything about woods! Highly Workable, Good choice for beginner wood workers/ handle makers. *= wood could be stabilized **= wood should be...

www.bladeforums.com

 

[Greenberg Woods]

This page Should give you more details.

stabilizing will not prevent color change to any major degree. Stabilizing is saturating the fibers in acrylic monomer and then curing it.

Color change happens through the oxidation or destruction of colored organic molecules for the most part. Diffirent organic molecules tend to break down in different ways. Some are susceptible to oxygen, some are susceptible to UV light, some need a combination of the 2, some break down at higher temperatures and so on.

Stabilizing will slightly reduce the exposure to oxygen. Its not very much and honestly i dont really notice much improvment.

If you want to maintain color, the best reccomdenations i can give are to use a wax finish instead of an oil finish, try to store it out of sunlight, and if the color is duller than you want a little 400 -800 sandpaper and a light buff will restore the original shine.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Purple heart is rather boring straight grain wood and if one is already willing to go stabilized in an attempt to preserve the colour I was wondering if it might not be easier to find dyed stabilized maple of the right color. Searching the net showed up a few places selling material with about the right shade of purple, but fewer than I expected given how many people ask about purple heart and color fade.

 

[Happychicken]

You guys rule!
I wanted to use small pieces of Purple Heart and Paduak for accents in wa handles.
I think the price was better than other woods but after having these woods stabilized I am sure it’s close to dyed stabilized maple in price anyway.
Can’t stop curly maple!
Also have come to realize that a lot of these “nice” furniture woods don’t really do enough as a knife handle. Not enough figure or visual interest in a small enough area to look good on knife.
For example I bought a curly redwood board that would look great in a project where the whole board was utilized but when it was cut down into knife handle blanks it lost visual appeal.

 

[Cushing H.]

You guys rule!
I wanted to use small pieces of Purple Heart and Paduak for accents in wa handles.
I think the price was better than other woods but after having these woods stabilized I am sure it’s close to dyed stabilized maple in price anyway.
Can’t stop curly maple!
Also have come to realize that a lot of these “nice” furniture woods don’t really do enough as a knife handle. Not enough figure or visual interest in a small enough area to look good on knife.
For example I bought a curly redwood board that would look great in a project where the whole board was utilized but when it was cut down into knife handle blanks it lost visual appeal.

Ive been coming to the same realization. As stacy (and ben i think) has said … when you have a large piece of wood, cut it to capture the grain/appearance of a few specific blocks/scales, not to maximize the sheer number of scales (i think stacy says he just burns the not-so-good pieces.

I think that observation will also help us understand the reason for the cost of really nice looking scales..

 

[Greenberg Woods]

Ive been coming to the same realization. As stacy (and ben i think) has said … when you have a large piece of wood, cut it to capture the grain/appearance of a few specific blocks/scales, not to maximize the sheer number of scales (i think stacy says he just burns the not-so-good pieces.

I think that observation will also help us understand the reason for the cost of really nice looking scales..

This is a bit of why handle grade material is so pricy. For wood figure to be good in an area about ~1.75 × 5.5 inches you need some incredible figure. In my experience if you have less than 4 or 5 curls per inch it won't work for handles.

Most wood retailers would list that has being top tier figure/ mastergrade/ whatever.

But if you want something to look great at the scale of a knife you need to get into the 10-20 curls per inch range and that figure is just exponentially more rare. Super dense burl and curl figure is not only rare, but it needs to be clean and solid.

Figure of all sorts is a type of defect. Burl, birdseye, curly, these all induce stresses in the wood and stresses cause cracks, voids, ingrown bark, twists and all the other imperfections of wood. So you're talking about a rare figure, without voids, properly dried and prepared.

To go from a log or a burl or other raw wood to a clean, high quality, solid block of wood has a ton of waste, it takes work, it takes time, it takes good connections with suppliers, and it takes a lot of experience earned through expensive mistakes.

 

[Happychicken]

yeah i was getting like three curls per handle with this redwood. even though many knifes with wa handles that i see are very simple, utilizing what was described above as straight gain wood, i didnt like it at all.
looks like ill be toasting some marsh mellows over this redwood

 

[C_Claycomb]

If you have not cut all the redwood into handle blocks, you could still make something nice with it. Maybe some kind of box or tray to organise EDC items when you go to bed. even some sort of kitchen knife block.

 

[eyeeatingfish]

I stabilized some purple heart for 1911 handles. The color seems to have stayed nice however I noticed that when I polished it I would see shiny portions in the wood. It appears that the resin hardened in the pores of the wood and then when polished I could see the little clear parts of the pores. I could show you a picture later if you are interested but I decided I wasn't going to do it anymore for things I sold. I am not sure if it was worse for purple heart than other woods but I really noticed it on the purple heart. Just something to think about. It wasn't bad per se but it didn't look like just pure wood.

 

[Happychicken]

Good to know the color stayed! Now I want to go get a 1911!!

 

[eyeeatingfish]

Good to know the color stayed! Now I want to go get a 1911!!

Here is a picture from my instagram. Look closely and you can see the little streaks of clear.

Matt Would Craft on Instagram: "Stabilized Purple Heart 1911 grips are now up on my Etsy page! Gotta love that natural purple color. These go nicely on a silver color frame too. #1911 #1911grips #stabilizedwood #woodworking #woodcraft #purpleheart #

47 Likes, 2 Comments - Matt Would Craft (@mattwouldcraft) on Instagram: "Stabilized Purple Heart 1911 grips are now up on my Etsy page! Gotta love that natural purple color. These go nicely on a silver color frame too. #1911 #1911grips #stabilizedwood #woodworking #woodcraft #purpleheart #wood...

www.instagram.com

 

[Happychicken]

I see what you’re saying. I think I’ll steer clear of the Purple Heart and do dyed maple instead
Thanks for showing that 1911! Make cocobolo handles!