Stabilizing wood?

[iloveairguns]

So, I have recently taken an interest in wood stabilizing, and have a few questions: What will the wood piece be like to sculpt after stabilizing, is it possible to carve it anymore or is it just like plastic? Also after the resin has cured, will there be uneven drying leaks on the surface of the wood? And what's the scientific name for the resin? That's all for now

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

There seems to be many material options for doing so, a wood impregnated with resin will definitely be harder to carve. It would seem that the best idea would be to carve first, stabilize later.

[iloveairguns]

Yeah, and if I would first sculpt the statue and stabilize it afterwards, would it dry evenly so it could be coated with lacquer then? Or would there be drying leaks or some such on the surface? Though isn't the surface of the piece wiped for remains and then dried with any of the three possible methods? (chemical, heat, uv-light)

[Anatine Duo]

Another option since you are interested in starting with green wood is PEG which will prevent cell collapse during drying and allow you to carve green... 2 birds with one spud maybe

There are millions of rifle stocks and musical instruments out there with unstabilized wood and they are doing pretty well... start with seasoned, stable wood and things can go very well with just an oil finish.

I have some stabilized burl (resin stabilized, I assume that's a 2 part resin). If you are using highly figured wood (often full of stress) like burl it's the way to go, but burl is not easy to carve with a blade and adding hard polymers throughout does not help. I just sand it to shape

[iloveairguns]

Ok, by the way Anatine Duo, can you post an image of your stabilized burl piece?

[Anatine Duo]

first photo... I hope

[iloveairguns]

That's pretty neat, though I like more colored stabilized wood, even though your does apparently have a brownish color, I really like a green, blue, red or a black too