which woods would you stabilize

marekz

marekz

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which woods would you stabilize, which woulds would you harden ( naxtrelene?) and which woods would you treat with the rg oils--tung,teaketc. it seems to me that i would only stabilize soft woods. I worried that the stabilization may make the handle very solid but it may loose its "feel" thats why i would only stabilize woods i that would deffinetly benefit from ( structural wise.--marekz
 
This is a list from Chuck Bybee at Alpha Knife Supply.

Woods Than Responded Well To Stabilizing:
- Acacia
- Afzelia
- Alder
- Amboyna
- Black Ash
- Bamboo
- Beech
- Beefwood
- Birch
- African Blackwood
- Box Elder
- Bubinga
- Buckeye
- Canary Wood
- Carob
- Chechen
- Cherry
- Coolibah
- Cottonwood
- Carpathian Elm
- Elm
- Eucalyptus
- Gum
- Jarrah
- Koa
- Locust
- Madrone
- Santos Mahogany
- Maidou
- Brown Mallee
- Red Mallee
- Mango
- Maple
- Masur Birch
- Mesquite
- Mulberry
- Oregon Myrtle
- Tasmanian Myrtle
- Needlewood
- Australian Oak
- Oak
- Olive
- Tasmanian Olive
- Osage Orange
- Paduak
- Black Palm
- Red Palm
- Pecan
- Pink Ivory
- Pistachio
- Purpleheart
- Redwood
- Russian Olive
- Sandalwood
- Sapele
- Sheoak
- Sycamore
- Tambootie
- Teak
- Tulipwood
- Vitex
- Black Walnut
- English Walnut
- Wenge
- Woody Pear
- York Gum
- Zebrawood

Woods With Limitations:
- Bocote - May Weep Stabilant
- Ebony - Scales Only
- Asian Ebony - Scales Only
- Striped Ebony - Scales Only
- Juniper - May Weep Stabilant
- Snakewood - Scales Only
- Thuya - May Weep Stabilant
- Claro Walnut - May Turn Black
- Pacific Yew - May Weep Stabilant
- Ziricote - May Weep Stabilant

Woods Where Stabilizing Did Not Work:
- Cedar - Stabilant Did Not Polymerize
- Curly Ipe - Stabilant Did Not Penetrate
- Lacewood - Wood Turned Black
- Limba - Wood Turned Ugly
- Merbau - Stabilant Did Not Penetrate

Woods We Have Not Tested:
- Cocobolo
- Desert Ironwood
- Kingwood
 
I got a 2" X 2" X 5" block of ebony in the soup going on three weeks. This is a experiment to see if it works.:confused::confused:
 
Scott's list is excellent.
I have never had any success with Cocobola or Desert ironwood.
I have had mixed success with Snakewood.
Cedar burl can be a problem, it stays stick for years. Camphor burl was the same problem. I think the resins stop the catalyst reaction.

In my opinion, any wood that can be stabilized will make a better handle is it is stabilized. In somewhere around 1000 pounds of wood that has been done by the pros, I have had maybe 20 pounds that I was not happy with the results.

Things to know:
Stabilization has to be done with the right stabilant to be useful for knife handles. Many things are called "stabilizers" and aren't what we want. Nelsonite is one. Minwax wood hardener is another with so-so results.
The penetrant has to be reacted and cured the make a polymer within the wood. Just soaking it full something won't do the job. Some things polymerize on their own, without a catalyst, others by heat, chemicals, or moisture. The inner parts of the wood may not polymerize if using the wrong stuff.

ANY wood to be stabilized has to be dry. Now, there is dry and there is DRY. The moisture content needs to be below 10% and preferably 7% before good results will be attained. You need a moisture meter to determine this.Looking at the wood or feeling it won't tell you. A drying cabinet is a good idea. Some woods take years to reach a stable moisture content. If the wood is not stable ( moisture wise) and is run through stabilization ( vacuum and penetrant) is may warp. crack, twist, or not cure. This is the number one reason for failure.

While professional stabilization can be done with nearly any size block of wood ( I have it done on some as big as 12X10X6), but home stabilization should be done on cut up blocks, or even better - handle preforms ( cut to shape,drilled for tang holes, rounded off a bit, and cleaned off of any wax or oils.

Protect your vacuum equipment by putting some sort of trap in the vac line to avoid sucking the resin/stabilant up into the pump. It will completely ruin a good pump if that happens.

The best home treatments involve both vacuum and pressure saturation. Using a paint pot or a converted pressure cooker can make a good unit.

Always think safety. Glass mason jars aren't vacuum bell jars, and can implode with serious consequences. The reduced pressure makes things boil violently, and may create explosive vapors. Boiling a jar full of wood hardener and acetone on a stove or hot plate is just plain dumb.

Air compressors are make for pressure. Using the intake port to draw a vacuum will suck out the compressor oil, and may burn out your air compressor. Vacuum pumps use either an air venturi ( from an air compressor) or a rotating vacuum pump that has a special thick and low volatile vacuum oil. You need a good vacuum to stabilize wood.

Have fun, and post your results.

Stacy
 
Thanks for the info, Scott. I sent some Osage Orange along with a shipment of maple to be stabilized and have been wondering how it well it would work for the Osage.
 
Do you think bubinga really needs to be stabalized? Its greasy, and hard, and naturally pretty stable.

Osage has been used unstabalized and under stress in bows for a long time. Its a pretty ideal handle wood without stabalizing IMO.

And WSSI told me that Walnut wasn't good for stabalizing when I sent some in.

I have a bamboo cutting board that we've had for years and has been through the dishwasher, etc, and isn't checking or splitting, and is still flat.

Masur Birch is soft. But its stable, and its been used, unstabalized, on knife handles for centuries.

Teak is on that list, and that is just dumb. Teak is famous for being stable. And its maybe the oiliest wood I've ever used. They use it on sailboats for these properties.

Wenge is greasy and stable. The soft pithy lighter colored wood could maybe benefit from stabalizing, but it isn't a warp prone wood.
 
I had WSSI tell me that also about the Black Walnut but I sent a few pieces to them and they came out fine. I have talked to K&G recently and they said they have never had a problem. They must be using different recipes.
 
The point of stabilizing materials is to make them better. People used bronze for knife blades for centuries. Why upgrade to steel? It was a better material.

Don't your collectors and customers deserve the best?

Fiddleback said:
Do you think bubinga really needs to be stabalized? Its greasy, and hard, and naturally pretty stable.
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We've had hundred of pounds of bubinga stabilized. It responds well. The pores get filled and the color is less susceptible to change.

Osage has been used unstabalized and under stress in bows for a long time. Its a pretty ideal handle wood without stabalizing IMO.
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Why not make it better? One of the problems with osage is color change. Professional stabilizing minimizes this problem.

And WSSI told me that Walnut wasn't good for stabalizing when I sent some in.
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There are different species of walnut. Each species responds differently. English and black walnut stabilize without a problem. Claro walnut can turn black when stabilized. We send claro walnut to WSSI and include a note saying we will pay for stabilizing regardless of the result. I suspect someone sent in claro, it turned black, and they did not want to pay for processing. WSSI responded by saying they would not process claro walnut. The claro walnut we sent to WSSI was beautiful when it returned.

I have a bamboo cutting board that we've had for years and has been through the dishwasher, etc, and isn't checking or splitting, and is still flat.
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Do you think stabilizing will make it better? In my experience bamboo gets better with stabilizing. The pores get filled and the wood gets a little more resistant to splintering.

Masur Birch is soft. But its stable, and its been used, unstabalized, on knife handles for centuries.
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Do you think stabilizing will make it better? Masur birch gets harder and becomes a better material for a handle after stabilizing.

Teak is on that list, and that is just dumb. Teak is famous for being stable. And its maybe the oiliest wood I've ever used. They use it on sailboats for these properties.
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What testing have you done to lead you to call stabiling teak "Dumb"? I don't think it is dumb at all. The teak we stabilized was spalted. Teak is susceptible to rot and deterioration just like other woods. Stabilization stops the spalting. We also stabilized regular teak and it readily accepted the process. It seemed harder after but I don't have a process for testing wood hardness.

Wenge is greasy and stable. The soft pithy lighter colored wood could maybe benefit from stabalizing, but it isn't a warp prone wood.
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I've never seen a greasy piece of wenge. Maybe the wenge you had was not properly dried? Wenge has large open grain and a bad tendency to splinter. Stabilizing filled most of the open grain and minimized the splintering. I absolutely recommend stabilizing wenge.

The following are my opinions with regards to stabilizing.

Yhe following materials are NOT stabiliants:
• Minwax Wood Hardner
• Polyurethane
• Lacquer
• Automotive Clear Coat
If you think any of them are stabilants, you are fooling yourself and short changing your customers. The professional stabilizing companies could save thousands of dollars if any of them would work for stabilizing.

We prefer to have our wood stabilized by WSSI. I feel K&G also does excellent work. We had to develop our own equipment and process for stabilizing cork. The cost of the equipment was several thousand dollars. However, we still send our wood to WSSI because Mike does a better job with wood.

Not all woods should be stabilized. My favorite example is african blackwood. It stabilizes well. However, I think natural blackwood finishes better than stabilized blackwood. We recently pulled some african blackwood burl from our kiln. I refuse to have it stabilized. The figure is subtle and I don't want anything to interfere with the beauty of the wood.

Stacy always makes excellent points with regards to stabilizing. If you are going to stabilize your own wood you must have a good, i.e. expensive, moisture meter. You cannot judge moisture content by feel or touch.

Never use glass as a vacuum or pressure vessel when stabilizing. Using glass could win you a Darwin Award.

Never boil anything that creates explosive vapors. This also could win you a Darwin Award.

If anyone wants to discuss stabilizing feel free to stop by the booth at Blade.
 
Walnut - as I understand it there is European walnut [juglans regia] which includes English, French etc. There is American black walnut [juglans nigra]. And there is claro walnut which is European walnut grown in CA. Is that correct ?? If so why would claro not stabilize if European does ?
Has anyone used white walnut [butternut ] [juglans cinerea] for knives ?
 
so what stabilizer would youall reccomend--please dont say resinol90c-- that i can atleast try Ariels tutorial with?I didnt get the whole thing about what you do after you stabilize.If im using Ariels method using one block that is drilled,tapped and has a vacuum tube secured to it while its in a plastic bag filled with "resin". what should i do to the block after im finished with that process. Put it in a safe device to apply pressure to it? --thanks marekz
 
And there is claro walnut which is European walnut grown in CA. Is that correct ???
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Claro walnut is a different species juglans hindsii. It looks significantly different than english walnut. I've never worked french walnut but I've been told it is very similar to claro.

We had a small piece of frankette walnut that had the deepest curl I've ever seen on walnut. Unfortunately I have not found any highly figured frankette since.

so what stabilizer would youall reccomend
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I like MMA. I wish I could find it in smaller quantities than 55 gallon drums. However, I'm still not sure I could duplicate the quality of professional stabilization if I had MMA. There is much more to stabilizing that stabilants, vacuum & pressure.
 
Karl B. Andersen said:
I can't even imagine that. I had K and G do some for me and the results were out of this world!
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I went ahead and had WSSI do the stabalizing, and the wood turned out. But, the understanding was that I would have to pay even if it didn't. They said 50% never hardens.

Burton said:
I had WSSI tell me that also about the Black Walnut but I sent a few pieces to them and they came out fine. I have talked to K&G recently and they said they have never had a problem. They must be using different recipes.
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Yep. I'm referring to American Black Walnut. Mine turned out. They said they loose ~50% regularly.



As to making wood better, I guess thats an opinion. Not everyone wants a heavy plastic feeling piece of wood. I can see all your points CB.

Wenge is greasy.
 
quote
As to making wood better, I guess thats an opinion. Not everyone wants a heavy plastic feeling piece of wood. I can see all your points CB.

I was thinking the same if a stabilized feels like some some micarta/g10 or whatever , than stabilizing does have the disadvantage of taking away a key element in using wood. I have not tested a stabilized handle vers a non stabilized handle so i cant say for sure. I quess the next best thing is having dry wood and use some hardner like nelsonite and retain the wood feel.-marekz The only wood as of now in my limited exposure that i would stabilize wood be redwood lace--it feels like cardboard and really pourous
 
IMHO, Nelsonite is one of the worst things to soak a handle in.

Ariel uses very thin epoxy resin ( probably something like System Three self leveling or clear coat). He mixes it with a slow cure catalyst, puts it in the bag with the wood, and seals it up. The vacuum allows the atmospheric pressure to apply 15PSI to the resin while the void in the center creates a good vacuum to help the resin move through the wood. He stops the vacuum when one of two things happens. Either the resin starts sucking up the vacuum tube, or the resin starts to harden.I don't know how well it works, but Ariel's opinion is nothing to sneeze at.

OK,I won't say resorcinol 90C, but someone else might.
Stacy
 
marekz said:
quote
As to making wood better, I guess thats an opinion. Not everyone wants a heavy plastic feeling piece of wood. I can see all your points CB.

I was thinking the same if a stabilized feels like some some micarta/g10 or whatever , than stabilizing does have the disadvantage of taking away a key element in using wood. I have not tested a stabilized handle vers a non stabilized handle so i cant say for sure. I quess the next best thing is having dry wood and use some hardner like nelsonite and retain the wood feel.-marekz The only wood as of now in my limited exposure that i would stabilize wood be redwood lace--it feels like cardboard and really pourous
Click to expand...

Its heavier, and yes, its kinda plasticy. I think lots of woods do need stabalizing I've got some redwood, for example. A lot of them on that list certainly do. I just got my first box of my own wood stabalized. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I just don't believe in stabalizing everything like a lot of guys around here do. Take Osage for example. CB says it makes it better to stabalize it because it looses its yellow slower. But I happen to love the mellow way that Osage ages. And its dimensionally stable anyway, so I don't stabalize it, and it has nothing to do with not giving my customers the best.

God made it damn good, and I don't mess with that when I don't have to.
 
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