hybrid & stabilised confusion!

Hybrid & stabilised confusion!

Its come to my attention that people seem to be getting mixed up between a hybrid blank and stabilised wood, and in some cases even selling a hybrid blank as a stabilised blank.

What is a hybrid blank?

In general terms a hybrid blank is a resin blank with something (usually burr wood) embedded within it.

like this example that I have made

what is stabilising 

stabilising is a way to make soft or punky woods hard, this is done under vacuum where a special resin is drawn in and then after the vacuum process is over it is heat cured essentially making a piece of wood which will no longer gain or loose moisture.

I have blogged about the process before here and here

Some woods cannot be stabilised as they are already very dense and the resin under vacuum simply does not penetrate.

and just to confuse matters more you can have a hybrid blank which features a piece of wood which has been stabilised.

In summary

just like casting with resin stabilising wood is a very labour intensive process and costly when done correctly, unfortunately there are some ways to cut corners and make it look like the wood is stabilised when actually its not!! so beware of what you are buying and specially how it has been made.

turned box design

Turned box design

I tend to work in batches and I have been making a batch of turned boxes for a few weeks now.

one of the designs I like to make is the shape shown here in this hybrid box

Hybrid box

hybrid box

I was asked if I could keep the concave shape on the side of the lid but increase the width of the opening to make the box more practical for my customers storage needs.

This spalted beech box was my first attempt.

spalted beech box

spalted beech box

and then I went on to try tow more boxes in olivewood and camphor burr each time slightly altering the proportions.

olivewood box

camphor burr box

I enjoyed exploring this design and will hopefully make more in the future.