stabilized?

[junker]

could someone explain to me exactly what stabilized wood or horn is? i have looked it up on google but all i could find were large complicated terms... could someone explain it simply? lol:p

[dkunkler]

Liquid resins are forced into the pores of the wood/horn under high pressure. When the resins cure the wood/horn is stable and resistant to moisture.

[junker]

Is it possible to do this at home or does it need to be shipped out to be professionally done?

[FredW]

You can do this yourself, i use and old pressure cooker I setup for both pressure and vaccum. I have had some success with this. I do believe the pressure part of the process works better to get the liquid impregnated into the wood. I run it under a vaccum first then apply pressure. I also have use a half gallon canning jar and used the vaccum attachment from a seal a meal to put the contents under vaccum and it seemed to work well. I use nelsonite but there are a lot of other things out there that may be just as good or better. I still have not had good enough results to not send mine out to get done or to just buy handled material already stablized. For the best results you need to send to a professional. WSSI does a great job and you don't have to bother with it.

I have seen a video about pressure treated wood where it is placed uder hydraulic pressure of a hundred pounds and the would is fully impregnated in less than 10 minutes. I don't have a setup to do that but if I did I dought I would send my wood out to be stablized. Don't know that I would not ever buy again. Just a lot good sources of handle material out there and really isn't that expensive.

Fred

[junker]

Would "lite 'r' not" work instead of stabilized wood... like, is it the same thing essentially?

[Rich Hale]

There are a lot of home and comercial brews that folks have used to "stabilize" woods or horn. I have tried a few myself and for me there are a lot of differences in te commercial brands Qute simply some are better than others. If you are making and or giving away knives wot you use for knife materials only makes a difference if you plan on establishing yourself as a good maker that want folks to be happy for a long time. For n ice piece of stabilized wood with nice pattern expect to pay more or less around $40. Hard to do on a $40 knife.

[kbaknife]

Look here:
Knife Making Supplies

[Dawg]

Use to work for wood company that pressure treated lumber. Had a large chamber that they immersed the wood in then pressuruzed it to 130 psi with air for a hour then took out to dry. Hope the concept helps.