stabilizing purpleheart or bloodwood

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Jim Dent

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Joined
Mar 23, 2011
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27
Location
Granton, WI
Anyone successful in stabilizing either of these woods, as pen blanks, in Cactus juice? I can't seem to get full penetration, and I'm wondering the technique.
 
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They may be hard, but they are not impervious to water. If I make a razor handle, that's gonna get wet a lot, shouldn't it be stabilized?
 
They may be hard, but they are not impervious to water. If I make a razor handle, that's gonna get wet a lot, shouldn't it be stabilized?
Not if you finish it with CA and I am not sure that the stabilizing will do to much as it is so hard.

Lin.
 
They may be hard, but they are not impervious to water. If I make a razor handle, that's gonna get wet a lot, shouldn't it be stabilized?

I would just finish with CA or Plexitone. That will make the handles fairly waterproof. Stabilizing those woods and getting decent penetration would be difficult unless you use a lot of pressure.
 
The resin is similar.

Similar to what?

I believe that he is saying that the resin that he uses is chemically similar to Cactus Juice and that he gets full penetration by including pressure in the process. Another thing that you could try is to drill the blanks prior to stabilization to allow penetration from multiple directions. Also, you could turn them closer to their final sizes so you do not have to stabilize through material that you are only going to turn away.
 
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Plexitone is a mixture of plexiglass and acetone. You break up a lot of plexiglass and then put it in a glass jar. Add a lot of acetone, and the acetone dissolves the plexiglass. Get it to the consistency of pancake syrup, and you're all set.

And it is a pita to work with. CA is a much easier way to go.
 
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