Stabilizing Spalted Wood

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RoninPA

RoninPA

Hawkeye
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Dec 8, 2005
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Lemont, PA, USA 16851
Grip makers, I need some schooling. Concerning Spalted wood. Do you have to stabilize Spalted wood? How do you know if Spalted wood needs to be stabilized? I googled "How to stabilize Spalted wood" and see that there are several ways to do it (cyanoacrylate, a runny epoxy, and other ways). What do you use when you have to stabilize it?

I was thinking of buying some of the Spalted maple grip blanks that are for sale in the classifieds and I recalled, in the past, people talking about stabilizing Spalted maple so it got me to looking into it.

Any info/instructions would be greatly appreciated by me (and probably others).

Thanks for any help you can pass on.
 
You'll need a vacuum chamber setup for starters. Here's a 3 part series in how to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfS9KgsKZmI
 
sfhogman said:
Thanks for the video!
After purchasing a couple of sets of Cary's beautiful grips I had always wondered how that was done.

Jeff
Click to expand...

I used to do this years ago occasionally. Figured a video would be a lot better and easier than me trying to explain it. If you have an old refrigerator pump, you can redneck it for your vacuum pump. And you don't need to get fancy with the enclosure. A good gallon jug with a big mouth & tight lid and a hookup for the pump, and a relief valve is about all you need to get started. Just make sure the wood is fully submerged in the resin about an inch or so beneath the resin. You don't want to suck resin into your pump.

This is what I'd recommend for the resin:
TMI, about $90/gallon but it can be reused (less what is absorbed into the wood). Quarts might be available also. Home page for more info/how to: http://stickfast.net/stick-fast-stabilizing-resin.html

Retailer:

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/tmi-stabilizing-resin-catalyst-gallon
 
Gunny, Thanks for the link to the video, that basically answered my questions. I have everything I need to do it other than the resin (I worked in laboratory environments in the USAF and in my post military career and collected a lot of different pieces of equipment over the years). I then found there are several different brands of resin and all seem to be pretty good. So, I guess I'll get some unstabilized spalted maple and try my hand at making some grips for some of my guns.

Thanks again.
 
Can the homemade spalted woods be as good as the commercially available woods? Won’t the commercially available stuff be made from a manufacturing facility with a stronger vacuum system?

Just like Hommade micarta, vs, store bought micarta. I’m pretty sure I’ve read on this very forum, it’s just not possible to get the pressure to make micarta at home, unlike a manufacturer set up to make it.

For example you can buy corn cob media that has been stabilized for use in knife handles. But I would be hesitant to try and stabilize a corn cob at home.
 
Kevin said:
Can the homemade spalted woods be as good as the commercially available woods? Won’t the commercially available stuff be made from a manufacturing facility with a stronger vacuum system?

Just like Hommade micarta, vs, store bought micarta. I’m pretty sure I’ve read on this very forum, it’s just not possible to get the pressure to make micarta at home, unlike a manufacturer set up to make it.

For example you can buy corn cob media that has been stabilized for use in knife handles. But I would be hesitant to try and stabilize a corn cob at home.
Click to expand...

Depends on how deep your pockets are. You can get a cheap pump from harbor freight for ~ $100, or you can get a multi-stage pump from Grainger or others for several thousand. And lot's of in betweens. You don't need to suck it down to a perfect vacuum tho, just enough to get most of the air out of the wood. The issue is that the pump must operate more or less continuously until the wood stops bubbling, which can be an hour or more depending on the wood itself. That means the pump will get hot, and cheap pumps usually can't handle long duration operation.
 
First off, there is no such thing as home made spalted wood. Spalted wood comes from dead or dying trees. It is a bacteria that causes the spalting. The wood is actually rotting. The spalting causes the different colors and black lines in the wood. The patterns are completely random. If left for the spalting to go on long enough, the wood will become like balsa wood. That's why it needs to be stabilized. It's just too soft for gun grips in it's natural state. The spalting process is stopped in wood by drying it, preferrably in a kiln.

The stabilizing needs to be done on the grip blanks before they are made into grips. The stabilizing process will warp the blanks some. I used to make my blanks at least 5/8" in thickness so when the stabilizing was done, I could then sand one side back flat again.

I would not make a pair of grips out of unstabilized spalted wood. As I said they will be too soft and if one tries to stabilize them, the thin grip panels will definitely warp.

There are all kinds of stabilizing kits one can buy but I always sent my blanks out to be stabilized by a professional who knew what he was doing. I can say that in over ten years of grip making, I never ran into one of his blanks that was not stabilized all the way through. This is who did all my stabilizing. There is lots of people who sell spalted wood on Ebay. That's where I got all my spalted maple. But be aware that it is not stabilized, you have to get that done yourself.

http://www.stabilizedwood.com/info.shtml
 
Thanks Cary, I think you’ve posted this before. I see in my post, I said spalted, it was thinking “hommade stabilized wood.”

But thanks for the insight. I’m sorry I never got a chance to buy some of your grips. I never had enough discretionary income until after you quit making them. This is why I worry about the future of hand crafted “artisan” goods...like custom revolvers. What will happen when the top name gunsmiths, and artisans like yourself, retire?

Sorry to digress.

So in other words, what you are saying is that if you attempt to stabilize wood in your garage, it might be stabilized on the outside but not all the way through? This because the pump isn’t powerful enough?
 
Kevin said:
Thanks Cary, I think you’ve posted this before. I see in my post, I said spalted, it was thinking “hommade stabilized wood.”

But thanks for the insight. I’m sorry I never got a chance to buy some of your grips. I never had enough discretionary income until after you quit making them. This is why I worry about the future of hand crafted “artisan” goods...like custom revolvers. What will happen when the top name gunsmiths, and artisans like yourself, retire?

Sorry to digress.

So in other words, what you are saying is that if you attempt to stabilize wood in your garage, it might be stabilized on the outside but not all the way through? This because the pump isn’t powerful enough?
Click to expand...

The deeper the resin goes the better it will turn out. Which is why you need to use a vacuum pump that will pull at least 25hg and maintain that for however long it takes for the wood to stop bubbling. At that point you slowly allow the vacuum to degrade to normal atmospheric pressure in order to allow the resin to penetrate into the pores of the wood. You can't just paint the resin on and expect it to penetrate more than a small fraction of an inch. The denser and larger the piece is the longer the process will take. For something like grip blanks with spalted maple it can take a couple hours to draw the air out and let the resin penetrate.
 
You can mess around trying to do it yourself and maybe end up with results that are not so good or bite the bullet and have someone do it that knows how. I made my total living off of selling grips. There's a reason I didn't mess around trying to stabilize the wood myself. Any time I started cutting into a set of blanks to make a pair of grips, I knew I could depend on the stabilizing being done right. I knew I wasn't going to start cutting into a beautiful piece of wood and end up having to throw it in the crap can.

My stabilizer has (I think) a $40 dollar minimum charge. He charges by the pound of the finished product. Being a grip maker I used to send him something like 60 or 70 grip blanks at a time. I always cut them up into grip sized blanks. You don't want to send it in board form. That way you'd have too much scrap stabilized wood. I always sent the blanks in 5/8" or 3/4" thickness. At least 2 1/8" wide and 5 1/2" long will make any size Ruger grip.
 
Good information here, thanks. As I understand it after stabilizing and filling the wood with resin it will no longer take a stain. So stabilized wood will only be seen in its natural color? I read where the folks can dye the wood prior to stabilization. However, to stain a blank, then stabilize it may not be possible. If it is possible it looks like when you finish fitting the grip you will be sanding off most of the stain color you applied? Bottom line question: is the only way to color the wood is to use a dye before stabilizing? Gary, the stabilized wood you buy off EBay; is that the natural color or have to dyed it prior? Thanks again.
 
OB'98 said:
Good information here, thanks. As I understand it after stabilizing and filling the wood with resin it will no longer take a stain. So stabilized wood will only be seen in its natural color? I read where the folks can dye the wood prior to stabilization. However, to stain a blank, then stabilize it may not be possible. If it is possible it looks like when you finish fitting the grip you will be sanding off most of the stain color you applied? Bottom line question: is the only way to color the wood is to use a dye before stabilizing? Gary, the stabilized wood you buy off EBay; is that the natural color or have to dyed it prior? Thanks again.
Click to expand...

You add a dye to the resin before you start the process. These are excellent dye's that I've used.

Transtint: http://homesteadfinishingproducts.com/transtint-liquid-dyes/

As with any wood finishing try it out on some scrap from the same piece of wood that your using for whatever it is you're making.
 
OB'98 said:
Good information here, thanks. As I understand it after stabilizing and filling the wood with resin it will no longer take a stain. So stabilized wood will only be seen in its natural color? I read where the folks can dye the wood prior to stabilization. However, to stain a blank, then stabilize it may not be possible. If it is possible it looks like when you finish fitting the grip you will be sanding off most of the stain color you applied? Bottom line question: is the only way to color the wood is to use a dye before stabilizing? Gary, the stabilized wood you buy off EBay; is that the natural color or have to dyed it prior? Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The colors in spalted wood are completely random. It's the bacteria that causes the different colors. Once the grips are stabilized they are completely impervious to any liquid. If you saw my grip blanks page before I disabled my website, you would have seen all the different shades and colors of the spalted blanks. In the stabilizing process a dye can be added to produce different colors. I had all my blanks gold stabilized. This produced the best color.

I don't know if they can even stabilize wood that has a stain applied to it. My stabilizer guy would not even stabilize any wood unless it was down to 3-6% moisture content.

I have used Transtint on different grips. But nothing that was going to be stabilized. The picture below is California Olive that is dyed red with transtint. Transtint is a concentrated liquid that can be mixed with water or alcohol for the carrier. I always mixed mine with alcohol since the alcohol will evaporate leaving only the color behind. The spalted wood I purchased from Ebay was the color you will see from sellers right now if you do a search on "Spalted maple" on Ebay. So it was natural, then I sent it out to be gold stabilized. The gold color is mixed in with the resin before the stabilizing process.

The picture of the wood is being sold on Ebay right now. It is an example of what I would buy if I was still making grips. I would cut it up into blanks and send them in to be gold stabilized. The only problem with that wood is that it is 1/2" in thickness. That would keep me from purchasing it. As I said, I only purchased wood that was at least 5/8" thick if I intended to stabilize it.

Here is one I definitely would have purchased. At 2" thick, I could have gotten a lot of grip blanks from it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Spalted-Cu...:GWoAAOSwNdValzJx:sc:USPSPriority!92567!US!-1

s-l500.jpg

672a.jpg

672b.jpg
 
Just about all my questions have been answered and I think I might try my hand at making grips for my guns, not going into business, just something to keep me busy when I can't, for whatever reasons, be doing something else.

So, my next questions:

How do you know that the wood you're going to use needs to be stabilized?

Are there particular woods that might be good for grip making that must be stabilized?

Is hickory an ok wood to use to make grips?" I have access to a lot of hickory trees that I can cut and let dry naturally and then plane the slabs flat.

I also have access to wild cherry and walnut and know these are good to go woods. I can also get Moraine Locust (that is some HARD wood) - grip use?

Thanks for any info you can provide. Might be a good winter hobby here in PA.
 
RoninPA said:
Just about all my questions have been answered and I think I might try my hand at making grips for my guns, not going into business, just something to keep me busy when I can't, for whatever reasons, be doing something else.

So, my next questions:

How do you know that the wood you're going to use needs to be stabilized?

Are there particular woods that might be good for grip making that must be stabilized?

Is hickory an ok wood to use to make grips?" I have access to a lot of hickory trees that I can cut and let dry naturally and then plane the slabs flat.

I also have access to wild cherry and walnut and know these are good to go woods. I can also get Moraine Locust (that is some HARD wood) - grip use?

Thanks for any info you can provide. Might be a good winter hobby here in PA.
Click to expand...

Nearly any domestic or exotic hardwood can be used. What you want to look for is grain. Grips are small so you want a fine grain (close patterning). Birdseye maple is often used, provided the "eyes" are closely spaced. What looks good on a desk top usually won't look good on grips. Also you don't necessarily want flat sawn. Some woods look much prettier quarter sawn, such as white oak.

One of my favorite exotics is the Rosewood family.

Take a look at this site to get some ideas. There are thousands of samples - not grips tho. Mostly what you'll see are unfinished samples in various cuts. He doesn't sell wood, so you'll have to hunt for whatever on line at various specialty wood sites. I've included a search engine that will help with that.

Also, if you choose an exotic, such as a rosewood, ebony, etc. be aware that most do not require (nor will they take) any finishing whatsoever because of natural oil content. Just sanding up to around 2000 grit (these high grit papers are usually available at car body shops), and buffing with a fine buffing compound and wheel, and if you wish, a coat of Renaissance wax.

HobbitHouse (samples):
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

Woodfinder:
http://woodfinder.com/

You can also buy small bags of a wide variety of thin veneers and glue them up to proper thickness, which can result in some very interesting patterns on the finished grips. Just something to tweak your imagination. :wink:

Take a look at the veneers that are readily available here. Ignore the backed sheets, you can't use those. http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/
 
How do you know when wood needs to be stabilized? Try pressing your thumbnail into it. If you leave a large dent, then it's too soft for grips. GunnyGene pretty much covered it. Any of the hardwoods are fine. Here's the Janka hardness scale for you to go by.

http://tinytimbers.com/janka.htm

I've made grips out of a lot of different woods and the only woods I had stabilized were the spalted woods.
 
Great answers/links that I was looking for to help me out, thank you very much. I think I've found a rainy/snowy day hobby. Since I have everything to try doing the stabilizing myself (other than the stabilizing liquid, which is easy to find thanks to you guys), I'm going to see how I can do.

Thanks much, once I get started I'll be sure to post my results, both good and bad.
 
RoninPA said:
Great answers/links that I was looking for to help me out, thank you very much. I think I've found a rainy/snowy day hobby. Since I have everything to try doing the stabilizing myself (other than the stabilizing liquid, which is easy to find thanks to you guys), I'm going to see how I can do.

Thanks much, once I get started I'll be sure to post my results, both good and bad.
Click to expand...

You're welcome. Just a suggestion, but you should start out with some easy to work junk wood to work out the proper sequence, fitting, etc. Some woods are way too expensive and/or rare to experiment with, and you don't get second chances if you screw up that perfect piece of walnut or whatever. :wink:

Tools - you'll probably need some small brad point wood bits and forstner bits for recessed screw holes. You can get good ones from Rockler among other woodworking suppliers. http://www.rockler.com/power-tool-accessories/drill-bits-and-drivers
 
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