Stabilized Wood for Strikers

[Cool Ridge Clucker]

I wanted to get your opinion on using wood, stabilized with Cactus Juice, for strikers........

Do you think the dried Cactus Juice that's hardened in the wood could adversely affect the sound of the striker if the hardened cactus juice was out on the very tip that contacts the playing surface?  I haven't done one yet, but was planning to use some old chestnut formerly used as farm fence rails as an experiment on strikers.  i planned to stabilize it since its weathered pretty bad and has been out in the elements for 60-80 years.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

[mastevt]

I do alot of stabilizing.   One thing that would concern me using stabilized material for strikers, is the loading up of the tip.  Remember, stabilizing is process to make soft punky wood hard and therfore useable.  If you ever cleaned up a blank after it comes out of the oven, whether you sand it or cut it, it produces alot of micro dust.  It's this dust that's gonna load up the tip from friction.  Another thing that worries me is that it's more brittle compared to a natural hard wood, that is not stabilized,  and it will probably have tendencies to break.  But, those are just my opinions. 

[Cool Ridge Clucker]

Do you think there would be similar results (loading up the tip) if using burl wood that has been combined with resin in constructing strikers?

[mastevt]

Do you think there would be similar results (loading up the tip) if using burl wood that has been combined with resin in constructing strikers?

Yes.  It is my belief that the majority of the loading will be directly from the resin.  I just don't think punky wood that is stabilized, is gonna run better than a hard good quality wood.  Now if you want to use it on the handle, and I do alot of that, by all means.  All of these I stabilized myself.  Except for the Walnut.

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[Cool Ridge Clucker]

Ok.  I gotcha.  I really appreciate the advice.