The biggest obstacle to the enhancement of wood properties through any form of chemical treatment is the impermeability of the heartwood of virtually all Canadian Wood species and their relatively narrow sapwood. Incisors using toothed rollers are commonplace in Canadian treating plants but they are not used for many products due to the detrimental effect on surface appearance. Alternative incising technologies anticipated to have less effects on surface appearance have been investigated over the past 30 years. This report revisits four of these technologies, lasers, needles, water jets and biological incising and evaluates their potential for further investigation based on recent advances in technology. Even using the latest technology, laser incising would be too slow and too expensive for a Canadian treating plant. Needle incising would be too slow but the equipment cost should not be an issue. Water jet treatment would also be too slow and the equipment cost is unknown. Biological incising is a very different approach involving batch processing. The major factor would be the cost of inventory which depends on the duration of incubation yet to be determined.