Wood Stabilization is a series of processes which use pressure and/or vacuum to impregnate

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

cellular structure with certain monomers, acrylics, phenolics or other resins to improve dimensional stability and/or material properties. When exposed to moisture through humidity absorption or direct immersion, most wood species will expand and change shape. When moisture comes into contact with wood, the water molecules penetrate the cell wall and become bound to cell wall components through hydrogen bonding. With addition of water to the cell wall, wood volume increases nearly proportionally to the volume of water added. Swelling increases until the fiber saturation point has been reached. Wood stabilization limits water absorption into the wood structure, thereby limiting the dimensional changes which arise from moisture exposure. Wood stabilization is a subset of wood preservation processes specifically used by

woodworking Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, woodworking joints, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with Rock (geology), stone, clay and animal parts, ...

enthusiasts to alter the material properties of specific wood species for applications within their craft or trade. Examples of wood items which are commonly stabilized include knife handles, pistol grips, straight razors, game calls and jewelry. One of the most commonly used stabilizing methods utilizes a heat cured polymer known as

methyl methacrylate Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is an organic compound with the formula CH2=C(CH3)COOCH3. This colorless liquid, the methyl ester of methacrylic acid (MAA), is a monomer produced on a large scale for the production of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA ...

(MMA).

Material Properties

Material properties of stabilized wood varies by specific species and type of stabilization process used, however in

softwoods Scots Pine, a typical and well-known softwood Softwood is wood from gymnosperm trees such as conifers. The term is opposed to hardwood, which is the wood from angiosperm trees. The main differences between hardwoods and softwoods is that the s ...

and soft

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

s, the improvement in strength, hardness and durability can be dramatic. For example, Poplar treated with MMA increased specimen density by 2.2 to 2.6 times with gains in hardness of approximately twofold (using the Janka Hardness Test).

References

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