I have a couple of pieces of oak, probably 60 years old, that have become quite “furry” on one edge and the part of the top surfaces that have been exposed to the air, while parts that had other boards stacked on them look ok.
Anyone know what is causing this?
I can rip the bad stuff off and the wood looks pretty normal underneath, but I wonder if it is ok to use the stuff. I’d hate to make something of it only to have the surface go furry on me.
Two of the attached pics show areas of bad oak and the third shows the cut surface from where I ripped the “furry” part off the board.
BruceT
Replies
I don't have an explanation for the phenomenon, but I would have no fear about ripping off the offending parts and using the rest. The furriness is obviously due to exposure to something. Oak should last for hundreds of years under normal conditions.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
Bruce,
Looks to me like they've had exposure to damp for a period of time. Stored in a cellar, covered outside against the ground, something like that. Is that spalting I see on the ripped edge? While the wood may look ok after you surface it, and may work alright, I'd be careful about using it in an application where oak's strength and resilience is necessary. It may disappoint in a high load application, rear leg on a chair for example. Probably wouldn't make a good axe handle, either :-0
Ray
Hi BruceT ,
It really looks like the fibre and cell structure has let loose in that area , sometimes when say wood gets crushed or some impact occurs it can go deep into the cells of the interior .
Sometimes when they fall trees the logs of some species can get fractured and it looks like hairline cracks that tend to follow through the log in that area , Alder has these fractures as well as Oak on occasion .
In an obscure spot take an awl or pick and see how deep the soft part goes . Plane a tad off each side and take a look , but as Ray said maybe be careful on how you use those parts .
you kept that wood so long it has hair growing on it !!!
dusty
The dark area leads me to think the wood did get wet/damp -- looks like mold/fungi activity, which has come to a halt and will stay dormant unless the wood gets damp again. You should be able to cut/plane off the affected areas. Hopefully, there's enough solid wood underneath to do something with.
Then that would be spalted oak. Sell it for twice the price you paid for it, right?.....;-)
When it's ugly, it's called spewwwlted, LOL! I have to laugh when I go to one of the local hardwood places, and they have spalted Alder. The line between spalted alder and rotten alder is so thin as to be barely visible to the naked eye!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
ROFL...you and I are on the same page on 'spalted' wood....Jeff
Oh, don't get me wrong, I love spalted maple, and I've seen a few others that were neat, but spalted Alder just doesn't click for me.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I don't care for it, I tend to refer to it as rotten wood. However, my sawyer had some spalted maple some time back that was stunningly gorgeous. Every color in the spectrum was represented in it. Amazingly beautiful. I actually went back to buy a few boards but it was all gone by then. My loss. But the plain looking black streaked stuff that is often referred to when spalted wood is being discussed is a yawner for me. I have some spalted oak that has failed on me, breaking unexpectedly. I sure wouldn't advise it's use where structural strength is required. But don't get me wrong. I'm not a proponent of the concept of 'if I don't like it, it's no good'. To each their own I say! Enjoy!Jeff
You've heard of Chia pets, I'm sure. That's called Chia Oak. Sprinkle some water on it, wait thirty days, boom, Chia Oak.......;-)
jeff,
Or vertical fur grain, instead of vertical grain fir.
Ray
" Fur "
That was a good one , and it came at a good time .
dusty
We usually call it broom grain , looks like this ones on steroids .
I've seen this before. Dobn't know what it's called, and have no real history to go on.... but I'll take this shot at it.
When I saw that kind of "furry" oak, I was working to replac3e some of the floorboards in a smokehouse that had not been used as a smokehouse in decades. I suspect that high moisture content, and numerous freeze-thaw cycles had destroyed both the cell structure, and the lignum (the 'glue' that holds the cells together.
But like I said -- that's just a guess.
Politics is the antithesis of problem solving.
Thanks, but I doubt that those five freezes in the past 60 years and that one time that humidity got all the way up to 50% here in our Los Angeles coastal suburbs would have been the cause. :)BruceT
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