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Ed Caffrey's Workshop Talk to Ed Caffrey ... The Montana Bladesmith! Tips, tricks and more from an ABS Mastersmith.

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Old 03-11-2013, 12:40 PM
Dave Armour Dave Armour is offline
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What woods stabilize well?

I want to have some wood stabilized- not burls, just "regular" wood. I normally work with culry maple,bocote, wenge, and purpleheart. Do they stabilized well? Are there any other types you would have stablized? I can't work with cocobolo/rosewoods or snakewood.

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Dave Armour
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Old 03-11-2013, 01:01 PM
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Ed Caffrey Ed Caffrey is offline
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I don't consider wenge or purpleheart as very good candidates for stabilizing......mostly because they have such large (open) grain......and the stabilizing doen't always fill it all.....and when it does, the finished pieces come out with somewhat of a "crazy glue" looking finish where the grain has been filled, and regular "wood look" elsewhere.....just looks uneven to me.

Purpleheart will oxidize out to a brownish color (even stabilized) with exposure to UV light.....changing the entire appearance of the handle


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Old 03-11-2013, 01:11 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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There are two "real" types of stabilization, vacuum and vacuum & pressure. The second method is well out of my price range but i stabilize my own wood with the vacuum method. My experience is that oily (red heart, purple heart) and extremly dense woods (ligum viate, iron wood) dont stabilize well or at all. i have stabilized bocote, and wenge with success. I haven't stabilized curly maple but as i have had success with normal maple i wouldn't see why there would be an issue.

Those who are able to stabilize with vacuum & pressure are able to stabilize almost any material. If you are going to have it professionally stabilized you should be good to go with all the woods you mentioned.

As for what ed said i agree, you might mot like how it looks stabilized.... but it will stabilize. Personally i kind of like the look of some stabilized woods with open pores. i have some dyed stabilized wormy curly box ender burl. the worm holes pool with colored resin and looks like random color streaks.

Last edited by jdale; 03-11-2013 at 01:15 PM.
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Old 03-11-2013, 04:17 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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A shorter list would be woods that don't or cannot be stabilized well. Alpha knife supply at least used to have a list of wood that did and didn't do well but I don't know if they still have the link. You dense, oily woods generally don't do well. That would be things like the Rosewood group, lignum vitae, African Blackwood, and lead wood. I've heard that Desert Ironwood doesn't do well either.

Then you have a few woods that are so stable on their own, such as Osage Orange, that can be stabilized but it's really not necessary.

Remember that Stabilization is not a cure all. It will reduce, maybe even greatly reduce, some negative characteristics associated with certain woods. It won't completely eliminate them.

Doug


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