I give up: what is stabilized wood?

[rjenkins]

At the risk of showing my PFC stripe(1), what is stabilized wood?

 

[Doghouse]

Any wood where you add a chemical substance to help hold the wood together. Usually spalted, burl, and fibrous woods that often have problems with tear out, get stabilized. It done professionally with high pressure. Some of us are experimenting with using vacuum to pull the air and water out of the wood, then have air pressure push the chemicals in. I am working with lacquer and ploy at this time.

Hope that helps.

(wow that spelling was bad, that what happens at 4 am)

 

[melchioe]

Doghouse is (of course) right on the money. I just want to add that not all stabilized woood is equal. Some have less thorough penetration of the resin throughout the wood, while others have nice solid even plastic resin throughout. (same goes for dyed wood too). I've had problems with penetration with stabilized wood from the two retail houses that are most common around here(one starts with "W" and the other starts with "R"). Conversely, I've had nothing but excellent results with stabilized (and dyed) wood from Arizona Silhoutte...

It's not necessarily the fault of the retailer or even the processor - some wood just doesn't take stabilization well, and through odd characteristics of burl and spalted woods, some areas just might not get the resin even in woods that can usually be stabilized.

Woods like ironwood usually are not stabilized because of density - the resin cannot penetrate them. Other oily woods don't usually get stabilized either.