Stabilized wood question

Smallshop

Smallshop

KNIFE MAKER
With stabilized wood being used for handles: does that mean any soft wood that would have been excluded as a good knife handle is now acceptable as far as durability? Not that I would want to, but to make the point, would stabilized balsa wood work for knife scales?

Thanks,
Guys
 
That's part of the benefit of stabilizing..... through stabilizing, a material that would be otherwise unsuitable for knife handles (too soft, too punky, too light, too porus), can be used. An example that comes to my mind is cork..... totally unusable as knife handle material in it's natural state..... but stabilized it works very well for knife handles.

Keep in mind that there are are "premium" jobs as far as stabilizing goes, and then there are those who "soak" something in Minwax wood stabilizer and call it "stabilized"...... the latter is like putting a bandaid on the stump of a cut off limb...just doesn't do much good.
As with most things, you get what you pay for......good stabilizing isn't cheap, but on the other hand, a crappy stabilizing job can be had for "cheap". If a stabilizing outfit doesn't use vacuum and pressure in there process, then it's probably not worth your money. ;)
 
Ed, Have you ever used cactus juice? I experimented with it and finally had to dye it to be sure I was getting it through the wood completely. I found if I stood the scale on end in the vacuum it worked better than laying them down. I'm not sure why. When I did this the dye/cactus juice was through the entire scale. My theory is that the air in the wood left easier standing upright than laying horizontal?

I haven't tried any softwood yet. Cork!? opens up a world of possibilities.

The wood I used from Burlsource.com definitely had complete saturation. it machined like plastic...sweet.
 
Smallshop said:
Ed, Have you ever used cactus juice? I experimented with it and finally had to dye it to be sure I was getting it through the wood completely. I found if I stood the scale on end in the vacuum it worked better than laying them down. I'm not sure why. When I did this the dye/cactus juice was through the entire scale. My theory is that the air in the wood left easier standing upright than laying horizontal?

I haven't tried any softwood yet. Cork!? opens up a world of possibilities.

The wood I used from Burlsource.com definitely had complete saturation. it machined like plastic...sweet.
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When using cactus juice on end does work better because the direction of the grain allows the air to be removed easier as you found out.
I got a jug and am building my chamber and testing it today on some partial punky live oak. Is going to be a long time in the chamber Im sure. Lol.
What did you use for the dye am a little curious?
 
I've tried cactus juice, and personally don't like it. I had many different issues that made it unsuitable in my eyes. After several attempts to contact the outfit that sells it, and never receiving a response from either phone calls or emails, I gave away what I had left, and wrote it off.

I spent a little over 5 years stabilizing my own materials, and from that experience, my opinion is that any knifemaker is money and time ahead if they send materials to a "professional" for stabilizing. If folks just wanna do it because they can, then I say go for it, however, based on my experiences, anyone who believes they are achieving quality results with anything less then industrial grade equipment and stabilizing agents is only fooling themselves.
 
my experience has been different than Ed's.

I use Cactus juice currently although there are several other stabilizing chemicals out there that also are good. I've tested at least three others, all with good results.
15 years ago I took a run at "home" stabilizing and the chemicals that were out at that time didn't work (Minwax Hardener for example) or didn't do what was needed for knife handles. Today there is at least 5 choices. The hardware needed to treat wood varies from paint pots to acrylic chambers to just a soak bucket. More time is taken to soak wood when working on the smaller scale than the pro's.

There are way more pen makers than knife makers and they are years ahead of knife makers in treating wood. If you want to research stabilizing, look to the pen making community. Duck call makers are pretty serious about their craft also.

Getting full chemical penetration of wood with a home brewed setup isn't that hard. It just takes a bit of time. Using dye in the stabilizer proves the penetration is complete.

I've been spending quite a bit of time lately working with stabilizing and dying wood. I can say for a fact that there is a learning curve and you should expect some annoying failures.

In my mind, I believe with some time spent on good technique, the average guy can dye and stabilize as well as the pro's. The question is however does the average guy want to invest in vac/pressure pots, a good vac setup, the chemicals, the dyes, obtaining and cutting the wood, cleaning it up, dealing with failures, etc? Does he want to do all that vs buying a block/scales of nice material and making knives? For some guys it's just about making knives, for other guys it's about all the rabbit holes you can go down when making a knife. I'm not sure the average guy will recoup all the costs associated with stabilizing their own material. I'm also pretty sure knife makers can make more per hour concentrating on making knives than coloring wood pieces.

Dyed/stabilized wood prices are fairly low as most anyone with a chainsaw and band saw can cut wood blocks, throw them in some juice, bake them and sell them.
 
I've used Cactus Juice on about 30 blocks/scale sets and I've been really happy with it. When I did have a question, I emailed them, Curtis I think?, and got an immediate answer. Can't speak as to using it on punky wood, I would not do that anyway. Personally, I don't think stabilizing is going to fix trying to use something that's not structurally sound to begin with. Too risky for me. There are some casting resins that are probably more suited for that.

I've got some buckeye burl that I've had for a while, but just can't convince myself to use it. It's about the same weight as stryofoam! Cactus Juice might fix it, just not sure. But, if you use good quality scales and think of stabilizing as a way to seal the wood or bone and keep it from reacting to the elements so much, then Cactus Juice is fine. But even then, humidity and temp still affect it a little.
 
As Tracy stated...I dyed the wood to prove penetration. Half of what I did turned out lousy laying them down. When I stood them up I got more consistent results. Being new to all this I would have to say that Tracy's observation as to the time sink-hole you can create for yourself is spot on. I do have a lot of figured wood that is unstabilized. I would be better getting it done and spending more time practicing grinding...LOL!

The kirinite blanks are even easier to work with than the stabilized wood. As I had to bow out here for a couple years my cactus juice went bad...and it's not cheap. So Why am I messing with everything?

Dad always said, " You always hafta learn the hard way...doncha?"

Yep...pretty much...lol.

Tracy, of the 5 choices for home stabilizing, which would you say is best, and what are the pros and cons?

PS. Walnut looks surprisingly nice with red dye through it....lol
 
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Smallshop said:
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Tracy, of the 5 choices for home stabilizing, which would you say is best, and what are the pros and cons?

..
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I really couldn't tell much difference between them in finished results. Some are more toxic than others and that pushed me towards Cactus juice which is very low toxicity. The MSDS for that shows it is completely non-toxic as long as you don't drink the stuff. The chemicals that are out now weren't available to the "home hobbyist" ten years ago or at least they proved to be very difficult to obtain. The pen turner guys opened that up and the knife guys jumped on it. The established stabilizing services tend to use proprietary chemicals and they are understandably reluctant to be specific about what they use.

To be sure there are chemicals out there that don't work well for stabilizing that some guys keep trying. These are commonly sold as "rotted wood" hardener for home repair in home stores or hardware stores. These will not give you the results you want.
 
BossDog said:
I really couldn't tell much difference between them in finished results. Some are more toxic than others and that pushed me towards Cactus juice which is very low toxicity. The MSDS for that shows it is completely non-toxic as long as you don't drink the stuff. The chemicals that are out now weren't available to the "home hobbyist" ten years ago or at least they proved to be very difficult to obtain. The pen turner guys opened that up and the knife guys jumped on it. The established stabilizing services tend to use proprietary chemicals and they are understandably reluctant to be specific about what they use.

To be sure there are chemicals out there that don't work well for stabilizing that some guys keep trying. These are commonly sold as "rotted wood" hardener for home repair in home stores or hardware stores. These will not give you the results you want.
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New question i am stabilizing for the first time my vacuum pump is very hot after 4 hours is that normal
 
The pump will get hot. It is normal. You can leave it run for hours and it will speed things along. Here in our shop, we pull a vacuum in our pots once or twice a day and let them soak. Doing it that way adds several days but we don't have the noise and smoke from the compressor and I don't have to pay someone to sit there and babysit it.
 
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