Stabilizing Wood

[Crooked Stic]

Have any of you tried stabilizing your own wood? I have found a few things on you tube of guys using vacuum. Some say to get a good penetration you need pressure. I have not found much on either process. Any info you want to share?

[Sam Harper]

I've been wanting to try it myself.  There's a guy in San Marcos, TX who sells what he calls "Cactus juice" that's a heat hardening resin he uses to stabilize wood.  You put the resin in a vacuum chamber, submerge the wood it in, put a weight on it so it will stay submerged, then draw a vacuum on it with a vacuum pump.  All the air will come out of the wood, creating a lot of bubbles.  You have to do that for an hour or so to get as much air out as possible.  Once the air bubbles stop coming out, let the air back in, and it pushes all the resin into the nooks and crannies of the wood.  Give it a while to let the resin get in, then wrap it in tin foil and bake it in the oven at 200ºF for an hour.

Check out this guy's web page:

 http://www.turntex.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=121

[Crooked Stic]

That appears to work well.

[Bruce Martin]

Sorry for a dumb question but what is stabilized wood? Same as action wood? Did not know you could make it yourself.

[Crooked Stic]

The wood is impregnated with some type of resin or hardner. Done buy vacuum or pressure. Stabilized wood such as Dymondwood is fairly moisture resistant and hard and heavy.

[matt_w]

This seems pretty interesting...how would this process work with some of the more oily dense woods like cocobolo?

[monterey]

Some guys stabilize their knife scales using minwax wood hardener.  They fill a jar to near the top with the hardener and then heat it by putting the jar in a pan of water on the stove.  Once it's god and hot, the scales go into the jar of hardener and then the level is topped of to the very top.  Temp brought back up and then the top is screwed on the jar tight and the whole thin set aside to cool.  The way it's supposed to work is the whole thing cools off and the heated liquid contracts and the vacuum formed by the tightly sealed air free jar forces the hardener into the wood.

Just reciting what I have been told by several knife makers.  Have never done this myself soo........... remember that french model.  

[talkingcabbage]

I've done it to small-ish pieces with a homemade vacuum.  I wanted some blue wood for an accent piece in my brother's recurve.  I found a tall cylindrical vase and made a lid out of some Corian.  I used a dremel to rout out a groove that fit over the top of the vase and filled it with RTV silicone and let it cure to make a seal.  Then drilled a couple holes in the lid for a pressure gauge and a nipple.
 

Hooked the nipple up to a food saver to pull vacuum.  Got about -19 lbs out of it.
 

 

I had to use a pinch clamp on the 1/4" tube once the food saver kicked off to hold the vacuum, but it worked great.  

I used Minwax wood hardener, but didn't heat it.  For the dye, I used a liquid Rit dye, but in hindsight, I probably should've used an alcohol based leather dye or some such thing.  I didn't realize till it was too late that the liquid Rit was water based, so it didn't like mixing with the solvent based wood hardener.  But it did penetrate well, all things considered.  I think the piece of wood I used was around 14" long and 1" x 2.5".  I let it sit under vacuum for about 4 hours, if I remember correctly.  It's been awhile, so I'm unsure of the exact times.

Here's what she was used for.  The wood is quarter-sawn sycamore.  Sorry for the bad lighting in this one.
 

This one is a little truer to color.
 

[MoeM]

Originally posted by matt_w:
This seems pretty interesting...how would this process work with some of the more oily dense woods like cocobolo?

Will work poorly- best are overdried, brittel woods.
Even cracks are cool- use coloured epoxy or PMMA really great for knivehandels etc.!