Wednesday 20 March 2019

An Insight Into The Making And Processing Of Stabilized Wood

By Paul Thomas


The furniture industry is among the most important industries that homeowners, institutions, and business people seek every day. However, the industry is under threat due to the continued ban on timber harvesting across the globe from the ongoing climate change fight goes on. As carpenters have no option but to salvage any piece of timber that they have to make items that their customers need. The costs and unavailability of these products leave investors in these industries with no other option but to use available timber. Here is how you can simply make stabilized wood at your workshop.

What is wood stabilization? This is a common question that carpenters and furniture dealers might want to know. The process involves taking different pieces of soft timber together and hardening them using commercial resins. These resins are useful in displacing available air in grain structure and ensuring that no moisture shall be present after the treatment.

How do you start stabilizing a blank? Blanks cannot be treated successfully if they are not completely dry. Any trace of moisture will contribute to resin resistance which might alter the outcome of the final product. As such, you have to ensure that all blanks that are about to be stabilized have moisture that is below 10%. Place the moist blanks on drying racks for a day or two until moisture goes down to the best levels.

The dried blanks will have minimal moisture level that does not go beyond ten percent. Prepare your processing kit and the resins before bringing them in. The kit comprises of the inner chamber, vacuum generator, a stainless steel pot and anti-float plate. The pots are filled with a mixture of resin whereby the dry pieces are inserted and left to boil until they are confirmed to be soaked.

For a complete stabilization and resin penetration, you should leave them to boil for not less than 30 minutes. After these minutes, you can carefully open the pot while wearing protective gears to prevent burns from the high moisture. A good indicator that blanks have been soaked completely will be their non-presence at the top of your mixture. The process can be repeated if you find them flowing on top. Cleaning the pots is a must to avoid gumming of the materials on its sides.

Having filled all the blanks with sufficient resins, you need to cure them. Each blank needs to be wrapped with an aluminum foil individually. Take the wrapped blanks into an oven that will heat them to a level of 200 degrees. Although a kitchen oven can provide the required heat, it is vital that you use a toaster. A thermometer can be used in checking for accurate temperature levels.

Is this the only way that a blank can be stabilized? No. Some traditional methods are available although they are tedious and might be time consuming for people who are new to it. Cheap commercial chemicals like wood hardeners are accessible from shops whereby they can be painted into pieces. However, their quality is low when compared to the above process.

Furniture buyers understand the difficulties that carpenters go through when looking for timber and have no problem paying the hefty sums to obtain a single piece of furniture. As such, all carpenters must use the best mechanisms of getting stabilized timber. The above guide will be instrumental in the production of quality timber products.




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