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I have a few knives that have stabilized wood handles. They are injection molded with resin through the wood, and don't move, crack, or absorb water. The grain still shows, and they don't look any different.

Other than the added weight, would there be a disadvantage to doing this to a wood rifle stock? There must be some downside, or people would be doing it.

Jeff

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I imagine the weight is enough of a downside. Such a stock has to be heavy.

You can achieve stability also by laminating, which adds weight, but probably less than forcing epoxy into the pores. Or however they stabalize it.

Cane flyrods were and probably still are stabalized. Of course, we're talking about a lot less mass, but they were a bit heavier than non-stabalized rods. While stabalization may have protected the wood, I don't think it made the rod more efficient because of the extra weight. Not sure about that, though.

Was just wondering...how deep can the stabalization material be forced? Would the heat (assuming there is heat used) warp the stock so it would have to be straightened, do you think?


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Ngrumba,

David Miller Co made several stocks from impregnated blanks a few years back. He only used them on heavy caliber, iron-sighted rifles though. The reason was the weight. They were more difficult to checker, and took a lot longer to do a checkering job on them, but the real issue was the added weight. They no longer use them.

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Many of the newer laminated stocks weigh no more than walnut of the same profile--or at least it's close enough to be within the variances of wood itself.

JB


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Ngrumba,
I have forgotten the source, but I remember reading about using white gas and a polyurethane solution. I tried it, soaking a stripped stock on a Ruger MkII with the mixture. Several applications, followed by sanding with fine steel wool, worked just fine. I didn't complete the job with a final poly finish to avoid a high-gloss finish.

I also free-floated the barrel because of some accuracy issues. The finished product proved very accurate and seemingly weather proof. It was a very flat-shooting .270 Win. and I wish I never sold it . . .

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Stabilizing in simplest terms replaces air in the wood with some form of resin. To get water out of the wood during drying takes quite a bit of time. Imagine the difficulty getting resin which is far more viscous back into all those tiny spaces. Pressure, both positive and negative, is used to do that. Heating reduces the viscosity of the resin, but creates problems in the lignin that binds wood fibers so there is a limit there.

Early laminates were heavier because they put more resin in the wood than they do today. It is nominally the same resin.

Solvents do not work because they must leave almost entirely before it can be used and they create routes for water vapor to enter the wood later.

Resins are heavy, but they are also expensive and therefore most stablizing operations are for small stuff like knife scales and handgun grips. Stabilizing a stock would be wasteful, difficult and time-consuming as impregnation rates decrease significantly with thickness, raising cost exponentially.
art


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Thanks for the feedback.

Jeff

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How would something like thompsons water seal do on a wood stock?

Amax


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I have a bunch of Stabilized Walnut I use for knife handles.
One thing I've noticed is that the unstabilized Walnut had great figure in it, and after the Stabilizing process, much of that figure has been toned down, and it's not real pretty as it was initially. And, the weight issue would be a show stopper for me using it for a stock. It is HEAVY...

Don


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Amax
Thompsons water sealer is about the worst junk going. It is useless for anything and everything. The reason is simple and explains the low cost; it is almost all solvents. The solids are scarce and do little to actually seal anything. KA outlawed early formulations of the stuff because the Volatile Organic Compounds (V.O.C.s) level was so low. For the low end target consumer the stuff seems great; it applies easily and looks good for at least 15 minutes...

Solvents are designed to make application of finishes easier. They never improve the final product aside from flattening the surface and increasing penetration.

The sad news is all oil-based finishes are very much alike. The better ones use less and better solvents leaving more finish solids behind than the cheap versions. And oil finishes absorb atmospheric water faster than bare wood.
art


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ART

I have an idea!!!!

Use Screwbean!!!!!!

I am sending a Screwbean blank to Ben very shortly to put the "chassis" in. Decided to build a sporter in 6.5 WSM grin

DWM


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