wood hardener

doesnt sound like it. you might still be able to if you want to change the collor a little bit though.
 
I am thinking of just soaking the burl slabs i have in the wood hardener for a while and skipping the dangerous parts. I am thinking that if I leave them in it for a couple of weeks that should be good enough. You may want to keep looking though. I believe there is another way of doing this by pulling the air out of the jar to create the vacuum.
 
I did it and it worked pretty well, I would not try with a difficult wood but most burls I think it could work. Put the wood and hardner in a jar and heated with a hot air gun. When it bubbled a little I put the lid on. I marked with a date and let it set for about 3 weeks, I had opened one after a couple of days and it did not work very well.

This was with some small slabs and scale about 1/8 to 1/4" thick. For small stuff it was ok but now I packed up a bunch of stuff and set it out, $50.00 does alot of stabilizing.

It will darken the wood a bit, and you dont need a finish it has a hard surface.
 
Patrickknives said:
.... For small stuff it was ok but now I packed up a bunch of stuff and set it out, $50.00 does alot of stabilizing.

It will darken the wood a bit, and you dont need a finish it has a hard surface.
Click to expand...

I think this is the best advice. Home made stuff is okay but there is nothing like real, professionally stabilized wood. Patrick is right though. You can get a lot of professionally done stuff for little cost.
 
I have done this with success but as said before it took weeks and I really don't know how deep the wood hardener went. Chris Crawford has a good tutorial on his website on how to make a vacuum chamber with a brake bleeder and that is a major step up from just cooling off the wood hardener to create the vacuum and it doesn't take very long to get the same results.
 
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pegleg- i guess my google isnt as good as yours;) or i didnt type in the right words!

thanks for the link, i think i want one now, it seems alot less dangerous and it seems it will work better.
 
I did the brake vac home treat a couple of times. It was pretty good and I'll do it again. I'd say 3/16" - 1/4" of penetration. Much better than finishing the surface and hoping for good penetration, but not as good as professional stabilization. I did a sanded in finish on top because...I like to do that.
Claro walnut.
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