Redwood Burl

[BKelley]

I recently purchased some nice looking redwood burl blanks. They were supposed to be stabilized, but two weeks after finishing a pen using a CA finish, my fingernail can make impressions on the pen. Question---- how hard is stabilized redwood burl supposed to be.

 

[David Keller]

Doesn't sound like commercially stabilized wood to me... most of the stabilized soft woods(like redwood, spalted maple, mango, etc) are hard as a rock after stabilizing. Some people use things like pentacryl to stabilized wood, but I don't have any experience with that. What I'm saying is that the term 'stabilized' could mean a number of things.