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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 12-26-2009, 11:42 PM
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Stabilizing Recipe

I just got my Acraloid B72 in today. I am trying a recipe I got from another maker.

In a 1 Qt mason jar use roughly 2/3 dry Acraloid pellets, cover with enough acetone to cover pellets, replace lid. Let pellets dissolve over a 24 hour period. Fill jar with Minn wax wood hardener.

Pull vacuum until material being stabilized stops bubbling. Hold under vacuum until material will no longer float.

Remove material, wipe off and heat in oven at 180 deg until dry. Allow to air dry for 2 weeks before use.

Anyone heard of this formula? Anyone have any suggestions on improving it?

Ill post my results once I'm set up and running.

Thanks and God Bless
Mike


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Old 12-27-2009, 08:39 AM
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Mike...Sounds Great!! Wish you good luck on the project. Please keep the rest of us posted.


Frank


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Old 12-27-2009, 09:13 AM
Wade Holloway Wade Holloway is offline
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Sounds like a good recipe. I would be very much interested in the results too. Don't forget the pictures.
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Old 12-27-2009, 10:23 AM
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That sounds great, I have tried the same process with just the Minwax wood hardner, with only limited success. Would love to find out if this process works.


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Old 12-27-2009, 12:53 PM
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Mike,

You might try the Search on Acraloid. It's been a long time back but I remember some pretty active conversations on that stuff a few years back. If you can find them, they may offer some good tips and save you some trouble.

All in all, it's hard for me to imagine that the expense and trouble make it economically feasible next to just buying a stabilized block or sending your wood out to have it stabilized. And, even that begs the question of whether or not the results are actually as good as the commercial product. Still, I'm curious to see what you learn from your experiment ...


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Old 12-28-2009, 08:58 AM
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All in all, it's hard for me to imagine that the expense and trouble make it economically feasible next to just buying a stabilized block or sending your wood out to have it stabilized.
I agree.

Several years ago Titanium Man, Chuck Bybee, told me he was going to start stabilizing wood for makers. He'd done the research on the pressure and vacuum chambers, and had a good idea of what "soup" he would try (but would have to do some experimenting). I asked him what the expense would be. I don't recall what he said, but it was a significant investment. I told Chuck to give Mike at WSSI a call and work out something with him. Now all of Alpha Knife's stabilized wood is done at WSSI. It saved him a few thousand dollars that he invested into the wood, which he sold and made a profit on.

I know a lot of guys on this forum like to experiment. They'll make their own basic phenolic laminate (Micarta), mosaic pin stock, and stabilized wood or other handle material in the hopes of making it cheaper and/or better. There's just no way that's going to happen. A block of premium amboyna burl from SE Asia that's stabilized by the company that originated the process, WSSI, costs $35. You just can't make it cheaper (unless you work for less than minimum wage and forget about amortizing the R&D time) and you can't make it better, certainly not with a mason jar for a vacuum pot. Experiment if you want to have fun, but not for any other reason.

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Old 12-28-2009, 08:54 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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I've used a product called Nelsonite which can be applied by just letting the wood soak in it for a couple of days and then letting it air for a couple of weeks. PCV pipe with stoppered ends will work but I think that it will eat up other plastic. Of course, glass will work too. I have cut a pieces treated like that in half and it seems to have penitrate all the way through. The problem is that it will stink for weeks afterward and whenever you try to burn a tang in. I doesn't last in the container long after opening unless the air is replaced by an inert gas. It does not harden wood, so if you have a soft or punky wood, Nelsonite will not do the job. Boiled Linseed oil will do a better job of hardening punky spalted wood better than Nelsonite. I have several sticks of wood that were treated with Nelsonite and I've had no checking or warpage and I treated them about five years ago.

I generally use boiled Linseed oil under vacuum. It's simple and you can use plastic containers designed for use with the home vacuum food perservation pumps. It will harden spalted wood a bit but I doubt as well as it really should be. I have had success with Madrone burle but I haven't tried it on any other burles or soft woods, such as Cedar.

In short, if I had wood that I didn't think the Linseed oil treatment would work for, I'd use one of the above professional outfits.

Doug Lester


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Old 12-28-2009, 09:59 PM
JEMHS JEMHS is offline
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Hi Guys,
Do you heat the linseed oil anytime in the process? What do you apply to different bones to keep
them from cracking, splitting & shrinking, what is the best stuff to use?
I'm trying to learn.
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Old 12-29-2009, 09:18 AM
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JEMHS QUOTE: "what is the best stuff to use?"

WSSI and K&G Finishing both will stabilize bone, antler, ivory, and wood. The cost is about $15 per pound. If you really want the best, there it is ....


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Old 12-29-2009, 10:29 AM
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No, I do not heat the Linseed oil. Also, I would not use it on anything other than wood. For that, send it out as Ray said.

Doug Lester


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Old 12-29-2009, 11:00 AM
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Mike, unfortunately I can't help you with the recipe, but you might check Ariel Salaverria's site - I think he has some info on it.

I always find these discussions interesting. We all know that KnifeKits, Jantz, etc. have great blanks made from high quality steel, yet we've all spent hundreds (most of us thousands) of dollars buying equipment to make knives ourselves. Most of these houses can also do heat treating very effectively and inexpensively, yet we spend more money on forges or ovens to do it ourselves. Why should this not apply to other aspects of knifemaking?

I think it's great that you're attempting to bring another aspect of knifemaking in house Mike and look forward to seeing the results.

-Dave

Edit: Found the link to Ariel's site. Here you go:

http://www.aescustomknives.com/docs/tutorial11.htm

Here is his second one - a little more involved:

http://www.aescustomknives.com/docs/tutorial14.htm


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Last edited by DaveRuhlig; 12-29-2009 at 07:03 PM. Reason: Found the Link
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Old 12-29-2009, 01:21 PM
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I think DaveRuhlig said that very nicely. There is no reason not to try to bring another facet of knife making in house. Making our own blades gives us individual expression and the possibility of designs that no one else offers and that's an improvement over kit blades.

Doing our own heat treating allows for exotic processes and variances that are simply not compatible with commercial (basically, mass applied) processes. That can give us a tremendous advantage over a commercial heat treat processor.

So far though, home brew stabilizing has been pretty much an expensive flop when examined as a cost saving idea or from the desire to create a better than commercial product. It is certainly possible that one fine day one of us may make that break through that will turn this situation around. However, previous attempts at using Acraloid, Nelsonite, Min-Wax, etc, while educational, have failed to provide a universal improvement on the commercial processes. So, experiment by all means though I hate to see anyone wasting time duplicating already failed experiments. In my admittedly limited view, if it isn't just as good but cheaper or (hopefully) more effective than the commercially available product then I fail to see why I would want to offer it to my customers ....


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Last edited by Ray Rogers; 12-29-2009 at 01:28 PM.
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Old 12-29-2009, 02:22 PM
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However, previous attempts at using Acraloid, Nelsonite, Min-Wax, etc, while educational, have failed to provide a universal improvement on the commercial processes.
Let's not forget the Thompson's water seal, Johnson's baby oil, straight mineral oil without the freshly changed diaper smell, various vegetable based oils, and Crisco shortening heated in the Fry Baby. I tried them (except the vegetable oils and the Crisco) in both the slow room temperature soak for weeks and the quicker treatment of warming in a double boiler. None worked, and actually made ivory worse. Did nothing for wood or bone.

Dave, sometimes there are other reasons for heat treating in house besides "I just want to do it myself". Many years ago I had Paul Bos heat treat my blades. The last time I use his service I believe the price was $2.50 per blade, plus extra if longer than 6 or 8". To get this price you had to send in a minimum of 20 blades. I never wanted to go into knife production, so I bought my own oven so I could heat treat one or two at a time if needed. Paul's HT service is probably the best you can get and worth it IF you do a lot of blades and sell only specific models, but it's not if you make one of a kind knives. I would trust Paul's work. The knife supply houses . . .

And the point of making knives is to make your own blades, not buy pre-manufactured ones from Jantz, Knife Kits, TKS, K&G, etc. That would make you a knife assembler, not a knife maker. Besides, I've seen them, and they aren't that great!

David


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Old 12-29-2009, 04:06 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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On reason that people want to do their own stabilization is the control issue. They just want to do it themselves. Another reason is that they don't like the plastic impregnated wood, antler, ivory, etc. This is not an issue of good or bad or even good or best. It's about what the maker wants to do. As for cost effectiveness, we are already involved in a hobby that is not cost effective. Making a knife by hand on an idividual basis has never been able to compete with a factory made knife pricewise.

Doug Lester


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Old 12-29-2009, 06:07 PM
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Originally Posted by Doug Lester View Post
On reason that people want to do their own stabilization is the control issue. They just want to do it themselves. Another reason is that they don't like the plastic impregnated wood, antler, ivory, etc. This is not an issue of good or bad or even good or best. It's about what the maker wants to do. As for cost effectiveness, we are already involved in a hobby that is not cost effective. Making a knife by hand on an idividual basis has never been able to compete with a factory made knife pricewise.

Doug Lester
Well, Doug, yes and no. Sometimes control is good, sometimes it's not. Okay, you want to control the stabilization process in your handle material. Why don't you control the other aspects of that material? Go to Laos and cut an amboyna burl off the tree and ship it home, then let it dry in your own wood drying building. Walk through the forests of SE Asia (where most of the current sambar antler is found, not India) and pick up your stag, bring it through customs where you have to have it checked for hoof and mouth disease, dry it, dye it, then cut it up for knife handles. Go to Alaska and dig around in the ancient Eskimo garbage dumps for your walrus ivory. If you're doing this for control, where do you stop?

Actually, what I've found is that many who want to stabilize handle materials are also those who want to make their own "Micarta" and their own mosaic pins, and recycle old car springs or lawnmower blades. A few months ago someone on this forum was asking about making mosaic pins. I suggested he just buy them since they were around $30/foot. His response was that they were too expensive and that he could get all the tubes for $20. I'm sure that he spent more than $12 worth of his time making it, all because he wanted to save a couple of bucks. I'm also sure that his quality was not nearly as good either. It's the same with Micarta. You can buy a properly made set of scales for $5, but you'd use that much in cloth and resin, and your time would be worthless. You can also buy tool steel pretty cheaply, and in that case you know what you get.

The very nature of the stabilization process means that there is "plastic" impregnated into the material. All of the stabilizers use one type of plastic or another in liquid form and impregnate the wood, antler, etc with pressure, vacuum, and usually heat to cure it.

Now, good or bad. Experienced makers like Ray and I come on here to give out information that we've learned from years of doing this. Both of us know that the "home brews", with the names of many already mentioned, don't work well. NONE of them work as well as what you get from WSSI, K&G, or Wild Woods. Most makers trying the home brew method don't have the equipment to draw a serious vacuum, but the pros do. Controlling some of the processes in making your knives is fine, but continuing to try some of these home methods when they've been shown to be faulty is just an unwise use of your time and money.

Most people don't make knives by hand to compete against the price structure of factories. I'm an artist, and like a few makers I do it to express myself. Most do this because they believe they can make a better knife than a factory can. In most cases, the best factory knife is inferior to even a mediocre hand made knife. And those makers who do produce a good or great knife understand that continuing to use a witch's brew to stabilize or finish their materials isn't smart, but getting a block for $35 is.

Lastly, for a lot of us this isn't a hobby, it's a profession. Even most part time makers take this far more seriously than they do a hobby.

David


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