What to do about very old unstable wood

[Bill Wyko]

I had shown earlier the burl pieces I recieved but they are old and a little unstable. Is there something I can treat the wood with to prevent it from blowing apart?:o

[TYLER WOOD]

Yup, brown box it up. The dark during shipment to me, will work wonders!!!:D


I use ca glue like crazy on the elm burls I have been using. It's about as punky as I have used. Some people use a wood stabilizer.

[Tony De Masi]

Bill, you could also try the Minwax wood hardener.

Tony

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bill.........Some folks use what's called an epoxy cocktail which is epoxy mixed with DNA to the consitancy of milk. The material is saturated with the cocktail until it won't absorb any more.

PM Bernie Weishapl about it.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Bill I keep a can of Minwax wood hardener around but some time I run out like last Monday. I was doing a punky, soft wood China Berry blank and would have put it in the burn pile but all I could see was laying a $20 bill in that pile. Yep with shipping it was $20 so wasn't going to waste this thing without a fight. Anyway nothing open at all because of the holiday. So I mixed since I had a lot of area to cover two packages of epoxy. When very well mixed I added DNA till it appears to have the consistancy of milk. I then paint it on letting the wood soak it in until it won't take anymore. Well you look at my post of the China Berry bowl in the last couple of days and it turned out just pretty good if I say so myself especially if you would have seen what I started with and IT HAD THE PITH IN IT:mad: he didn't tell me about.

[John Shuk]

Wood hardener by Minwax is good stuff.

[Dick Strauss]

Bill,
I've used watered down glue for stabilizing punky wood. I use two parts water to one part #2 glue. The only drawback was the slight yellowing due to using #2 glue. I think this method is much cheaper than wood stabilzers.