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spalted maple lumber?

All righty then :thumb: Matt as you know you got some primo stuff. Now you make sure you share what you make with them :) Well Larry you cleared of a bit of what you have, now to take care of the other few thousand BF on hand:p:rofl:
 
Good stuff!

Yep, the blanks get my seal of approval! They not only are the ones pictured spalted without punkiness, but they have a little curly figure throughout!

If I had a truck and unlimited resources I would have bought the whole lot, including the ash! :) They would make for some nice 24" tall vases!

Larry, you're the man!

Hutch
 
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I happen to be working toward suppling spalted lumber. I have 12+ old sugar maples spalting in the woods right now. I am also working on some spalted beech. I have 2 logs due to be sawed up this next week and will maybe post details in the commercial post zone. I'm kinda new at this and hope this is not the wrong place to mention these plans. I'll post some pictures when the logs are sawed.................in the appropriate place.

There is almost always some punky areas in a board because the fungal colonies don't form at the same time usually. I have had good success with pen blanks by soaking the soft areas with CA glue.

One of the logs due to be sawed is spalted/ quilted maple. I'm looking forward to see how that one saws up. :thumb:

Some of the most unusual spalting I've come across is around carpenter ant colonies. I have a few pen blanks in my private stash that I call Holstein spalt because its all white and black without the typical black lines.
 
Great looking stuff there Larry! I'm stocked full of wood for the year, but I hope you can unload that stuff to some more turners. Is there a local turning group or one close? Or maybe Matt could get the Woodcraft he works at to sell it too?
 
well jeff i put some more over on the classified where they belong. so you can go over there and druel some to.. i figured with all yu spinny guys here that maybe there would be some interst??? kinda like feedin the steers to get a nice steak sometime:)
 
Dan Thibert said:
Newbe Question :rofl:

What is spalted wood????

You spalted some coffee on it???
Click to expand...

dan go look at the pics above or in the clasified section.. its the process of fungi starting the decay process in woods and causing a desirable discoloration at times ,, but yu need to get it quick cause it goes punky fast.
 
Dan Thibert said:
Newbe Question :rofl:

What is spalted wood????

You spalted some coffee on it???
Click to expand...

Larry answered it pretty good.
It is the beginning steps in wood rotting. Various fungi get into the wood and start a breakdown process which affects appearance.
Depending on the fungi, type of wood and, mebbe, location the effect can vary with intensity and color. There are grays, blacks, blues, greens and reds that can show up. Boxelder is one wood that is very popular spalted because it takes on so many colors.
And, of course, being odd, strange and weird, it appeals to turners more than other types of, more mundane, woodworkers.
So, basically, you take rot, call it art and charge more. ;)
 
Punk indeed!

I suppose I should qualify my "no punkiness" claim. Paul is right, as far as I have seen anyway. There seems to always be at least a small pit of punk.

Case in point, I just roughed out a 20" bowl out of the stuff I got from Larry, and though very very nice, there were still a few small areas of punk. It's rather minor and it can easily be stabilized so as to eliminate tearout, so I consider it about as good as you can get.

Hutch
 
This thread is timely.
I have a large stack of maple planks in the garage.
When I plan a project that I think would be nice with maple, I go out get a plank, whack off what I need and put rest back.
I'm planning on making a fairly large, heart shaped, bandsaw box for my grand daughter.
Yesterday went out for my maple and....Uh-Oh :eek: found almost every plank has started going spalted. Most about 50%. Finding solid, full width pieces was nearly impossible.
These are 2 1/2" thick. Believe I'll cut into squares, set in sun then use some for turning and give rest away to my turning club guys before they all turn to mush.

Edit: here is a hunk I cut and planed yesterday. Last fall it was all solid, not spalted.
 

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