Stabilizing woods- question

B . Buxton

B . Buxton

Joined
Jul 8, 2001
Messages
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I'm getting some wood pieces together I've had around a while and sending them to wssi for some stabilizing. Will the process penetrate Thuya, ebony and koa or will they not accept it.

Thanks,

Bill
 
:) WSSI done some Thuya for me with excellent results. The Ebony may be to dense. I've never worked with Koa. Just call or e-mail Mike at WSSI. Great guy and good customer service.
 
Thanks, I tried to call Mike a few days ago but had to leave a messege, he hasn't gotten back to me yet and I would like to send this stuff out Monday. I was hoping some of you had this stuff stabilized before. Ebony might be to dense but it sucks for handle material like it is, it just keeps moving and moving and moving.If he can't stabilize it, I'll just hide it some where so I can forget about it.

Bill
 
Bill, I had bought a piece of stabilized ebony from Mike a few years ago. I went to use it and then a noticed a crack already in it. He replaced it no questions asked but I think there's a few types of wood stabilizing is just a waist of time and money.
 
I responded to Bill via e-mail. This information may be of some use to others so I will post part of my e-mail response.

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Thuya burl stabilizes well. However, it weeps oil for a few weeks. To speed up the process of getting the oil from the wood we put the thuya in a toaster oven at 200 degrees for about two hours. Put the wood on the top rack and foil on the rack below. The oil will collect on the foil. Mike at WSSI told us this trick.

Ebony is hard to stabilize because of its density. It is very hard to dry throughly. We send in scales to be stabilized. The maximum thickness is .375". I like stabilized ebony. It polishes like glass when sanded to 220 and buffed. Finer grits make it look even better. I ask the knifemakers we've sold stabilized ebony if they've ever had problems with cracking. In five years we have not heard of any of our stabilized ebony scales cracking. I believe our success is a result of careful and thorough drying.

Koa is one of the best woods to stabilized. It is very dimensionally stabile. Some woods like redwood and maple move around when stabilized. We've had some blocks twist like a corkscrew! The only koa that moved was spalted. I think the curl in koa shows up better when stabilized. Koa is one of our favorite woods. I wish we could find more.

Mike is hard to reach sometimes. He does knife and wood shows so his schedule it pretty full. I usually send him an e-mail and ask when I should call him.

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I should have added: Ebony scales will sometimes take more than a year in the kiln to dry!
 
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