FancyWood Company

Stabilization is the process in which the wood is hardened or strengthened so that changes in moisture or humidity will not affect the integrity of the wood. Stabilizing is a multi-step process: drying, processing in a vacuum chamber with resin in order to fully penetrate the cells with resin, curing or setting (usually this is done with a mild heart source) the resin, and on occasion adding a dye to the resin to enhance the grain or figure of the wood.

One benefit of a stabilized piece of wood is that it will no longer be affected by humidity changes. Also, the wood becomes resistant to rot, is often easier to work, resists fading, and stabilized wood retains the look of wood rather than having the look of plastic. Wood that has been impregnated with plastic resin tends to "hold" the wood fibers in place, reducing chip out and splintering. If you think about it, we have all sorts of objects from the 1700's and 1800's that have wooden construction, and they haven't fallen apart yet. Why is that? The answer is use of specific finishing products. By keeping moisture away from wood, the aging process slows significantly. Some woods are so dense to begin with, or so oily/waxy by nature that modern stabilization techniques are useless on them anyway. By preventing moisture from getting into the wood, swelling, cracking, and checking are greatly reduced. Any decent penetrating sealer will also accomplish the same thing. Samples of wood not requiring stabilizing: Ebony African Blackwood Cocobolo Purple Heart Ironwood Bocote Snakewood Cedar Myrtle Camphor Really, any wood with a natural high oil content.

Basically, anything that is borderline "soft" for a handle wood. When a wood is porous, burled, soft, punky, spalted, stabilizing will just make the wood more impervious to moisture as well as make it harder, take a finish, enhance color, etc. In general, very light wood like buckeye burl, light maple burl, Redwood burl, Cottonwood and poplar will roughly double or triple in weight when properly stabilized. They will go from soft and almost foam like to slightly harder than a wood like natural rock maple, resistant to most regular scuffing but still not as hard as exotics. Medium density woods like Hard maple, Koa, Amboyna, Walnut and bog oak will gain roughly 60%-80% weight and will become roughly as durable as exotic woods like blackwood or cocobolo. Dense woods like Ebony, Rosewood, and Ironwood benefit minimally, if at all from stabilizing. Woods like Ebony or Bubinga can become more stable and resistant to cracking due to humidity changes, but the advantages are relatively minor, and the choices should be made on a person basis.

Stabilizing will not fill voids or gaps. Stabilizing resin will fill wood, it will not fill gaps. For large gaps or voids, use epoxy with black dye, and for small gaps use CA glue. Stabilizing also does not make wood plastic. Well stabilized wood still looks like and works like wood. It has a grain structure and can be worked with chisels, saws and abrasives. It simply strengths and enhances the wood. After finish sanding, multiple layers of a standard finishing oil or wax can be applied to enhance the appearance and protect the finish. Other oils can be used as well, walnut, hemp, poppy seed, teak and Tung oil should be adequate add solvent and a touch of varnish

Green wood refers to wood that has been recently cut down and has not had an opportunity to season. Seasoning refers to the drying on the internal moisture that is in the wood. Green wood is considered to have a 100% moisture content relative to air dried or seasoned wood. Dried Wood To achieve a wood product that has less than 20% moisture content, it must be seasoned or dried. There are two processes that are used to do this, one is air drying, and the other is kiln dried.

Air dried wood is pretty self-explanatory, it’s wood that has been left to dry in the air, as opposed to applying heat to dry it. It is the more traditional method of drying wood and gives the timber a little more flexibility.

Kiln dried wood is wood that is sawn, placed in a kiln and dried using warm air currents. Kiln drying is a considerably faster process to traditional air drying. This method produces a much harder product.