Knife Handles and Stabilizing wood

[elkliver]

Any Knife makers on here? If I understand the process when you make handles out of wood, you need to stabilize the wood so that it doesn't split. This is done by placing the wood in a vacuum so the resin gets puled into the wood? If you have a cool piece of wood, is there any way to treat it and make a handle out of it? Anyway to stabilize it yourself?

If its a solid piece of wood, can you just make the handle and not stabilize?

 

[NVVAHunt]

People made knife handles out of wood long before stabilizing was a thing. That being said they will last a lot longer if stabilized with a resin. If you don’t want to invest a lot in equipment there are YouTube videos of people stabilizing wood in mason jars with brake bleeders and other cost effective ways of doing it.


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[flatlanderhuffandpuff]

Depending on the wood you don't need to stabilize. You can also buy stabilized scale blanks pretty cheaply. If you're trying to stabilize a piece that has sentimental value you can find videos on youtube.

 

[Nate_Beres]

Do people stabilize bone? Found a elk "cannon" bone and want to make a hatchet handle. It's full range but I'm rough on gear.
I think I've seen people stabilize wood in a space bag.

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[Wapiti1]

Youtube covers you on stabilizing. Before stabilizing they used linen liners glued to the wood, and sandwiched between the blade and handle material. The linen gave the wood some stability to not split with the grain. Burl is a different animal and usually needs to be stabilized.

Jeremy