Stabilizing at Home

There have been threads about stabling wood at home listing several meterials I can't find them. Does any one know where thay are. Is any one doing it and what do you use, how much time does it take & ect. Gib

Hey Gib, now's my chance to help you!! There's a product put out by Minwax called Woodhardener. I don't know if they have out your way or not. You can check at your local Home Depot store. I know that it's sold at the one where I work. Calvin over on Tims forum says he used it already you might want to check with him also. Hope this helps buddy. BTW I'm gonna post a pic soon of a gun-stock war club I'm working on. It appears to be coming along nicely. Talk at ya later, Bud

I do it with natural pinon pitch. I gently simmer the pitch in a cast iron pot, and submerge the wood into it. The heat and pitch drive off moisture and air and replace them with resin. It seals the wood real well.

Run a sink full of your hottest tap water,in a jar big enough to hold the desired piece of wood put Thompsons Water Seal,when the water seal is as hot as the running water put the wood in and seal the lid tightly,let cool.Works well.

Glen, how deep does it penatrate? Should your handle be relativly close to shape? Or would this work for blocks also?

Mike

The fellow that put me on to this did it with slab handles cut almost to size,depth of penetration -unknown-

what about using a superglue of some sort? it uses water as the catalyst, so it should penetrate deeply, and then lock up all available h2o as it catalizes.

Dan

in my experience super glue won't penetrate very far into the wood.

I tried a mix of Thompson's and Minwax wood hardner, the stuff stayed kinda sticky, great grip on the blade but always felt like a kid had just eaten a bag of hard candy while playing with the knife.

Put a handle blank in a jar or ziploc bag ful of the Min wax and wait till it doesn't float. Pull it out and let it dry.

The penetrating Boat builders epoxy is cheaper if you are doing large batches of handles. If you just wanna do a couple the Minwax is the ticket IMHO.

Iv'e used the Thompson's on wood that is hard and have used the Minwax on soft maple to make it hard enough for handles.

There's a tip on that on Don Fogg's site. Look for his shop tips, or use the search engine.

JD

I used the following mix on some cherry with pretty good results. I can't remember the knifemakers name, but he gave me this tip:
1/3 part MinWax Wood Hardener (yellow can)
1/3 part Min-spirits (thinner)
1/3 part Linseed Oil (boiled)
Put pieces in mixture in an air-tight container, and I left them in there 24 hours. My handles were just about finished, so I'm not sure about the penetration. He had used it on antler ends and they looked great also. I'm going to try the Thompsons idea posted here too. Thanks!
Larry

Gib, The way I do it is to put your scales in a mason jar with a pin hole in the lid. I have a hand vacuum pump (one man brake bleeder) from Auto Zone. Place Minwax and scales in jar. Pull as much vacuum as you can, around 25. the air will come rushing out. Looks like Alka-selzer. Clamp the vacuum tube and leave overnite. Allow a good day or two in the sun to get rid of the acetone in the minwax. Not like the pros, but does a good job on even spalted wood.
I'll have to try mixing in mineral spirts and linseed.
Paul