Spalting maple

[Eric Gourieux]

When Ken mentioned spalting some of the maple from Hayes' wood haul, I thought about the maple I cut and sealed last summer. I have 100 or more turning blanks cut and sealed from that tree I harvested from a neighbor. Most of it is curly. Can I still get it to spalt? It's sealed with anchorseal. I live in southern Indiana, so it's not very humid this time of year. I've read about several recipes for spalting but wanted to get your take on it.

[Joe Watson]

Pretty sure there is a thread here where someone did just that... turned then "spalted" it themselves then finished... sorry forget who or title of the thread.

[John Keeton]

Perhaps this is the thread (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?177739-Results-of-Self-Spalting-Test&highlight=) to which Joe is referring in which Bob Bergstrom spalted some rough outs. Personally, I would reserve spalting for the plain figured wood. Curly maple is a rare find - particularly good curly maple, and spalting will obscure much of the chatoyance of the figure.

[Ken Hill]

I agree with John, if its curly let that show through. The only maple I have here is plain jane baseball bat boring! The exception to that is Mineral stain we have here, when it is in the Maple it really adds to the wood.

[Donny Lawson]

I spalt alot of my own wood. It's better with a fresh cut piece in log form. You might get some spalting with older blanks but it might just turn soft and punky. I think I would use a fresher tree. I hope to check one of mine today and see how the spalting is doing. If you try it good luck and let us know how it works. Spalting might work different in different types of climates.

[Greg Just]

I spalted some silver maple last summer just by burying it under my mulch pile. Worked on a fresh wood, but it takes awhile. I rough turned mine as there is no need to spalt the wood you will be turning away. At this time of the year, wood won't spalt in this area as it is just too cold.