WSSI is a company that has all the industrial equipment to stabilize many things and mike is probably the most knowlegable person in the industry about stabilizing and wood/bone/horn/etc properties
WSSI
Generaly what happens is it's placed in a liquid acrylic resin type bath and put in a vacuum for so long then autoclaved. What you get as a final product needs no stain, no dye, nothing but cut, shape sand and polish. it WILL mirror polish super easy.
However you really do need all your industrial bondage gear when working with it as it is a plastic material of sorts and will indeed play hell with your lungs over time so be safe!
You can dunk stabilized wood in water and it will not swell up like noraml wood, it will absorb some water but that will drain out fairly quickly. it makes wood less prone to warping, cracking, checking, color change over time, etc..
the below are made with stabilized wood, all clear dye and from WSSI. The first one is bone
giraffe bone:
spalted pecan:
ash burl:
spalted birch:
pen. black cherry burl:
sugar maple from canada:
WAXES:
reninsance wax can be bought many places but do not get hung up on the 'reninsance' part. This is a clip from the conservator at the springfield armory museum/
use PASTE waxes ONLY. I prefer carnauba-ased furniture waxes such as kiwi, bois, mohawk or behlen or black bison on wood stocks. I also recommend using pigmented paste waxes.
Avoid wax mixtures which include a high percentage of bee's wax. they are not especially harmful, but are relatively soft and can be slightly acidic.
Use a microcrystalline wax, such as renaissance wax as a protective coating. such waxes re practicaly inert, remaining stable for a very long time. apply and buff out with a soft clothor brush. ferrous metals (iron, steel) should be preheated for 30 minutes or so at 210F so that the wax will form a complete seal.
in the GCA journal vol 20, issue #3 summer 2006 he has several photo's of flintlocks that were in display when katrina hit. they were submerged in saltwater for many weeks and the photo's are astounding. there's one oiled, one cold wax and one hot waxed. the oiled looks like someone put a coat of rust on it with spots of heavy rust. the cold wax has some rust blotches in places but nothing even. the hot wax looks like it was never in salt water. BTW the hot waxed lock is a brown bess lock. these came from the chalmette visitor center's exhibit. the 2 waxed were treated in 1985.
Ed
