I understand that spalted maple is a result of decay activity (fungus?) in the wood that produces that spectacular look. My question is, is the quality wood usually found in trees that are still standing, or can it be found in trees that are down, and if so for how long? Have any of you actually discovered spalted wood when cutting trees?
forestgirl — you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can’t take the forest out of the girl 😉
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Forestgirl,
The answer is yes to all three of your questions, it occurs in standing trees and downed ones, and you can find it while cutting down a tree. In Vermont, I used to find it pretty regularly in standing trees and logs in my wood pile when I was cutting for the woodstove. Standing trees with spalting are almost always visibly damaged and show stress such as early color change in the Fall.
Because it is a living process, the transition from spalted and usable to spalted and punky varies greatly from log to log. I don't know of any method of controling the process or judging when to cut into a log and dry it out.
I've think that finding good spalted wood is mostly a matter of luck. To improve your odds of finding spalted wood, it's best to have a few friends in the tree felling business who know that you are looking for it. Unfortunately most of the spalted that shows up in firewood piles is cut into short lengths and often badly checked.
John W.
Forestgirl,
You can spalt your own wood. I wouldn't risk expensive dimension lumber but if you find a log you can split and store it outdoors in such a way that encourages spalting. There are a number of woods that develop attractive spalting paterns. I've got a bunch of hackberry in my yard that would be beautiful. I just don't have the time to deal with it and it'll end up in someone's fireplace this winter.
This last weekend I hauled back a load of stock for the projects I have to complete over winter. Just to try something "different".... I brought back a 9' board of spalted beech. The sawmill owner said the log this board came from had been left felled almost 4 years to "develope" before he cut and kiln dried it. This being the first time I've had any spalted stock to play with, I'm currently at a loss as to what to make from it; the patterning in the wood is so strong that it might overpower the wrong design...
All I've done with it so far is cut it into slightly more manageable pieces... time to do some thinking....
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Cool! What a neat treasure. The spalted wood looks great in box-lids and panelled doors with contrasting trim.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Everyone who expects to be working with spalted wood should be aware that it can cause respiratory problems. Pulverizing the fungus filled wood allows it to get deep into the lungs where, in some people, it can cause quite a bit of trouble. A similar condition occurs in farmers when they've been exposed to fungus in hay, it can be debilitating. Good dust control and a dust mask are a wise precaution when working with spalted wood.
John W.
Edited 9/18/2003 5:32:45 PM ET by JohnW
Good point John. I would use a full-face mask myself. Used to have my own boarding stable, and I know how nasty that mold can be -- could smell it in tiny concentrations, and out the bale would go (to the compost pile).forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
point taken John.... thanks for the heads up.....Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
The best way to get quality spalted wood is to make it yourself. Most of the lighter colored woods will spalt dramatically. The fungi that cause the spalting occur naturally in the wood. Logs kept moist and in warm weather will spalt nicely over a summer. It may happen faster in the southerly realms. A log or section of log stored in a garbage bag will become wonderful. Here I am attaching a nice example. This is a bowl turned from spalted river birch that I cut from my front yard.
Clay, that's a stunningly beautiful bowl! Was the river birch naturally spalted when you cut it, or is this turned from a piece you coaxed along using the plastic bag technique?
Jon the first pieces that I turned from that river birch tree were pretty but very bland wood. The bowl pic that I posted was one that I turned after a summer "in the bag". I am putting up another pic here of a larger bowl that was also turned from that same tree. I had about three of the logs that I saved "in the bag"and was a little too busy to get to them timely. As a result some of the wood was overdone and I lost a little to excessive deterioration but the usable pieces were pretty dramatic. Sort of extreme examples of spalted wood's appeal. I finished these with many coats of wipe on polyurethane, sanding once in a while to keep the build on the more solid areas minimized while filling the thirsty softer parts and mostly leveling them ... maybe twenty coats or so on some of them.
Clay, that's a stunningly beautiful bowl!
Well said, Jon. Stunning is the only word that came to mind as I viewed it. I'm not a terribly big fan of spalted wood. But, Clay's bowl is simply incredible.
Regards,
Kevin
Clay, that is a beautiful bowl! Thanks for sharing your technique for home-spalting the wood. Since I live in the Great Northwest, and the warm part of our summers tends to be pretty short, I'm seeing "spalting bags" in the bathroom, ROFL!!
What woods would I use? I suspect Alder would spalt nicely, but it's a pretty soft wood -- is this a good idea? We have Big Leaf Maple readily available. Also, I've seen a piece that was purportedly made of spalted Madrone (or Madrona, depending on your preference).
Question: Does it need to be left in the round for this treatment, or could it be cut to 4/4?
Hmmmmm, soon as I get a new chain onto the chain saw, I'm gonna run down the road to that fallen maple log and take a look-see.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Most any wood has possibilities but the lighter creamy and tan woods are the most dramatic spalters. The dark areas of the spalting are nearly pure carbon and so show up more strongly against light backgrounds. The darker woods sometimes show the spalt more as light areas where the fungi has leached the carbon from the woods natural pigments. River birch is not a very dense hardwood. Still the harder woods seem to be capable of losing strength due to the fungal action while still retaining enough for practical purposes better than the softer ones. I would say though to work with the woods that come your way. Adventure is an important part of the process. Cut pieces will work but the spalting is a natural process that is only slightly controlled and the edges of the wood may not spalt as well as the interiors, so it is wise strategy to spalt larger pieces and then cut them to show their best faces.
I think the nicest piece of spalted wood I ever saw was from an apple tree and I've seen a lot of nice maple spalted wood.
I think the best way to handle "cultured" spalted wood is to let it spalt in the round and then saw it and dry it as planks to avoid the inevitable stresses that develop when an uncut log is allowed to dry out. If it is possible to spalt cut wood, it would have the great advantage of allowing you to see the progress of the spalting and then stop it at just the right point. Has anyone tried this?
John W.
I have two old pear trees in the yard that are about to meet their demise. Maybe I'll try spalting a couple pieces of those. Thanks for mentioning the apple -- might be able to talk the Sweetie into letting me cut on big limb off our ancient apple tree.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
JohnW
A friend of mine has a sawmill and once gave me a pile of beech that had been sawn 4/4. A customer had brought in the logs then didn't come back for the lumber. The boards had been outside in the sun for about 2mo stacked up with no stickers. He needed some room so told me if I wanted them take them. When I started to load them they were stuck together to the point where it was hard to get them apart but once I did I discovered some very nice spalting. There was about 200' of this stuff and only maybe 10' was to punky to use. The short answer is yes, it is possible to spalt wood after it is cut but it is likely to be as much of a crap shoot as doing it in log form. Might be worth expermenting with though.
RichThe Professional Termite
Thanks for your response, I'll probably try it someday.
John W.
Should I put some moist shavings in the bags, or just wrap the log alone? Is it important to leave air-space around the log, or could I wrap it with Saran Wrap tightly? (I should put such effort into my cooking, LOL!)forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I just stuff the logs in there and close the top. I can't answer those detailed questions. Try it every which way and soon you'll be advising me. We must each strive to advance the total fund of knowledge from which we all draw our strength.
FG, I agree with Clay, it's best to use the blonde colored woods, preferably also one that has poor decay resistance (maple, birch, ash and some of the fruitwoods spalt easily.)
I think it is also best to leave the wood in the round, otherwise you tend to get too much surface spalt, when what you want is a marbled appearance.
I DO put a little moist sawdust in the bag to ensure that the moisture content of the wood stays above 20%. Also, I usually use sawdust from a scrap of previously spalted wood, but I doubt if this ritual matters much, since the mold spores that cause spalting are everywhere in the atmosphere.
The objective is to keep the wood's moisture content between about 20% and the wood's Fiber Saturation Point (typically between 25% and 30% MC for most species.) This is the humidity range that maximizes the mold's metabolism. The molds need some oxygen to metabolize, so the wood can't be allowed to get too wet. You also want to keep the temperature above about 60F (70F to 80F is the better range.)
Once you have the level of spalting you want, it's important to let the wood dry out to a moisture content that is at least below 18% MC, just to be safe...The molds will go dormant once the wood is uniformly below about 20%...and if you don't arrest the process quickly, you'll end up with punky wood that's too soft and weak to use.
...And one last caution, this technique is a hit or miss proposition. Sometimes you end up with a rather featureless gray tone to the wood, rather than the attractive, dark veining...but it's a fun experiment to mess around with.
Edited 9/18/2003 3:06:33 PM ET by Jon Arno
Jon, you must have heard me "paging" you with ESP, thanks for the input! Let's say that I have a round of wood that's been home-spalted and I'm ready to stop the process. I'm going to be eager to get it cut into 4/4 material and stacked/stickered for drying. Can I do that right after I pull it out of the bag?
Thanks for the specific MC percentages and temps, too!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Yes, as soon as you've achieved the amount of spalting you want, it's best to mill it to the dimensions you plan to use. This helps it dry out faster. You can sometimes get a clue of how much the log is spalting by looking at the end grain, but you never really know what you have until you cut it open. I usually split the log and take a look when I think it's probably beginning to develop some nice veining...and if it isn't quite what I want yet, I put it back in the bag.
...Again, there's no exact science to this. I usually load the bag with debarked chunks of log and let it go for a month or so in our slightly warm furnace room. After that, I open the bag every week or two to see how it's doing. This replentishes the air which the mold also needs (they're aerobic little devils)... then if it looks like it's getting a bit dry, I pitch in some more damp sawdust.
I've also tried spalting larger logs by rolling them into a shady spot, covering them with leaves and hosing them down every few days...But that's a real crapshoot and much more difficult to control. I succeeded with one ash log and I did get a couple of nice 6" boards out of it, but most of it got too pulpy on me. Wasn't even good firewood. Like I've said; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Edited 9/18/2003 8:15:14 PM ET by Jon Arno
Jon...
at the risk of sounding blonde..... do I risk contaminating the rest of my stock having a board of spalted beech in the shop?? All my stock's been K.D'd to 10%, but with my lack of progress, some of it's destined to lay around for a while before I get to it, including the beech.Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
No, Mike, if the moisture content of your inventory of wood is kept comfortably below 20%MC, the molds will remain dormant. The fact that one of the species you have happens to be spalted stock wouldn't matter. The mold spores are lurking in the air (literally world wide) just waiting for the ideal conditions to metabolize...which are: a food source in the form of wood that does not contain antiseptic extractives that would poison them...adequate moisture, meaning humidity that causes the wood to maintain a moisture content somewhere in the range of 20% to 30%MC. If the wood's MC is kept below 20%, there is inadequate moisture for the molds to metabolize...but if the wood's MC gets much above 30% ...in other words, becomes thoroughly saturated (above its Fiber Saturation Point), the molds can't get enough oxygen to metabolize. They need both moisture and oxygen to operate.
Also temperatures in the range of about 40F to about 105F are needed for the molds to metabolize. They seem to be most active in the 70F to 90F range, but there are many species of fungi that feed on wood and they each have their favorite conditions. Although, as the temperature approaches freezing they all pretty much go dormant. On the other hand, sustained temperatures that get substantially above the top end of their preferred range will completely sterilize the wood. For example, moist heat as low as 140F to 150F that is maintained for just a few hours will wipe out virtually all the various decay fungi...Unfortunately, because the fungi spores are everywhere in the air, once the wood cools down, they will reinfect it...So, even kiln dried wood, if it is allowed to absorb enough moisture to get above 20%MC again becomes fair game for decay organisms.
Unless you live in an extremely humid climate (like Southern Florida), it's doubtful that lumber stored in your shop would pick up enough moisture to allow decay organisms to become active. Throughout most of the U.S., wood stored indoors seldom gets over 18%MC...and in most regions the top MC usually stays comfortably lower; in the 12% to 15% range.
Edited 9/18/2003 10:13:54 PM ET by Jon Arno
Thanks for settin my mind at rest John.. the stock's KD'd to 10%.... enough warmth in the shop to keep it well below threshold....Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
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