I've made literally hundreds of steak knives with thuya burl handles. I started with the premise that I wanted it stabilized because the stuff cracks just looking at it and weeps resin for years. I started by cutting up a whole burl into oversize blocks. The burl was many years old. Because the stuff leaks resin so bad, I put it in the oven at 170F for 48 hours. It bled resin. You'll either love or hate the smell of thuya.
I lost between 25% and 30% of the blocks to cracking, but the bonus was that what was left stabilized very well. I finished the handles with 10 coats of polymerized tung oil - 24 hours minimum between coats and got a nice gloss finish. Too glossy, so I toned it down with a light buff with 0000 steel wool. The agreement was that the blades were never to see a dish washer. That lasted about a week until someone put one through by accident and it survived. The blades survived four years of commercial dishwasher cycles before they were sent back to me for refinishing.
I'm going to suggest that Thuya Burl is the most beautiful of all woods (IMHO), but I would not use it unstabilized.
Rob!
