Stabilising wood for knife scales. First attempt

[anthonyget]

A good friend gave me some beautiful pieces of fruit wood, apple, plum and some laburnum. It was about a year away from being dry enough to work for knife handles. I wanted to learn how to stabilise the wood to save fiem.

[Canyonman44]

Just a suggestion; I would like to see the same thing making stabilized Bone. Whatcha think?

[anthonyget]

Just a suggestion; I would like to see the same thing making stabilized Bone. Whatcha think?

Don't see why not. as long as you need to harden porous material, it should work fine. I don't tend to work with bone, but would be interesting.

[Floradawg]

Thanks. Very interesting. I turn pens, and stabilized or in your case stabilised pen blanks are costly. A lady once gave me a beautiful section of redwood burl. Gorgeous! I cut it up into blanks and sent it off thru the mail to be stabilized and, well, they blew it. When I got them back I turned one and the result was a fuzzy useless mess. From the smell it seemed that they hadn't properly cured them and also appeared that the resin hadn't properly penetrated. The worst loss besides the cost was the loss of the wood. Your process looks like something I may try. Thank you very much. Cheers!

Charles

[DIYer]

Thanks anthonyget! We've added your Wood Stabilizing Method to our Woodworking category,
as well as to your builder page: anthonyget's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Wood Stabilizing Method by anthonyget

tags: handle, wood, knife

[anthonyget]

Thanks. Very interesting. I turn pens, and stabilized or in your case stabilised pen blanks are costly. A lady once gave me a beautiful section of redwood burl. Gorgeous! I cut it up into blanks and sent it off thru the mail to be stabilized and, well, they blew it. When I got them back I turned one and the result was a fuzzy useless mess. From the smell it seemed that they hadn't properly cured them and also appeared that the resin hadn't properly penetrated. The worst loss besides the cost was the loss of the wood. Your process looks like something I may try. Thank you very much. Cheers!

Charles

Thank you Charles. That is terrible story about the burl. Do give it a try. It seems to be working really well. I think the key is to be patient and not rush things. I believe the curing of the resin is very key. Good luck with it.