Color changed in mineralized maple?

[Mike Parzych]

I recently got 200 bf of curly mineralized maple. It's primarily red like cherry, and I'm curious if anyone has experience with possible color change over time. I heard somewhere that the color fades.

[Martin Shupe]

I recently got 200 bf of curly mineralized maple. It's primarily red like cherry, and I'm curious if anyone has experience with possible color change over time. I heard somewhere that the color fades.

Mike,

I have never heard of this type of wood. Can we see a pic? Sorry I can't help with your question, but I'll bet someone here can.

[Mike Parzych]

I just got a web cam and will have some pics in a short time. It's definitely a freak thing, that's why I snatched up all of it. Essentially it has the grain features of maple, just with curl and red. Pretty cool stuff.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Mike, it sounds very cool! Can't wait to see the pics.

[Dan Forman]

Is "mineralizing" a natural process, or the work of man?

Dan

[Donnie Raines]

This occurs mostly in maple, but can happen in most any type of wood.It is more noticeable in the lighter colored woods simply becuase they are...well..lighter thus the streaking or coloring is more apparent.

The color change often happens when you have soil that is overly wet...lack of drainage or simply just lots of residual water from "something". The boards that I have seen do this did, in fact, keep this color.

I am curious to see a photo as well and to know what part of the country(if you know) where these boards came from. Also, is there any greyish color mixed in with the reddish color??

[Mike Parzych]

My first attempt with the webcam so I hope they are somewhat decent.

This just one of the boards. When I got them home I had to cover them because of the rain, so I haven't had a chance to look them all over. But I think it's representative. Some of them are 10"-12" wide, and are all 1.125 which I can finish at 1". I got them from a local sawyer, and you don't want to know what I paid.....you'd cry. Less than hard maple from a sawmill. Way less.

[Mike Parzych]

Oh yeah...it's some sort of soft maple.

[Dan Forman]

Way too cool, especially the price! Be sure to post pics of whatever you build with it.

Dan

[lou sansone]

please take the following comments as " constructive" and not in any way to demean your pruchase :


I may be wrong on this, but it looks like you simply have some soft maple with a large dark heart ( normally considered pallet lumber ) . Unlike cherry, where the sap wood is not desirable, maple is usually the other way around. When maple logs are valued by a buyer, they look for the smallest heart. I do have some curly soft maple ( actually quite a lot ) that has some mineral staining on it, but does not look anything like what you are showing. I have quite a lot of what I would call low grade soft curly maple with similar color as your pictures. I hate to burst your bubble, but if you got a deal, it may not be the deal that you think. Most often, but not always, people using curly maple want it as white as possible. Darkening in any form is a considered a defect. I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but since you did ask, I felt that the honest thing to do was to comment as I see the picture.

very respectfully
lou

[Donnie Raines]

After looking at the photos, it looks less like mineral stains and more like mold stains. Mineral stains would be a darker reddish tone and would be through the entire board...up to a point.

The mold, that I think it is, comes from the surface of the boards being exposed to higher levels of humidty right after being cut. The moisture content in the woods mixed with the moisture in the air create this mold that tunrs the surface greyish in color....and is streaky liek yours...and the color matches perfectly to this(at least the way they appear in the photo). Thats why most maple is cut in the winter time, the humdity is far less in content and the chnace of this occureing far less.

Will the colro go away?...maybe not. It may once you surface it depending on how far down it goes. Bleaching will not cure it either, though it will even out the color more so.

[David Fried]

By conventional thinking the boards may be lemons but I bet you can make some really cool lemonaide! Didn't conventional thinking have folks shunning figured and spalted woods for a long time? Make something unique with it! Happy Pioneering.

[Mike Parzych]

I appreciate any and all comments since I'm certainly relatively new to full-time woodworking. I may have been misleading when I said the pics were representative of all of it - the color and figure are representative, but the appearance of heart lumber is not.

For instance,I just pulled a 14" x 11 foot plank from the stack and it's all red, both through the length and thickness, and was barked on about 3 feet of one edge. To me that rules out the "heart" aspect. And 95%+ of each board in the stack is pure red tones. And again, I don't know, but I don't think mold could be present throughout. There's a very small amount of spalting, and I don't know if that figures into the overall appearance in some way.

In any case, at $1 bf I'm happy. I think the first project with it will be a coffee table with this lumber inset, with a 3" border of "white" hard maple, and legs, to make the color and figure jump out more. I live not far from a little touristy town where there's $5 cups of coffee, and plenty of well-off matrons wandering about wondering how to spend money. That should work.

[Jim W. White]

I think you scored bigtime! The coloration is awesome!!! ...and it should not fade.

I personally fall into the camp of "more character the better" and I think mixing woods really sets a peice off. If your going to make peices with the blandest/whitest/clearest maple stock possible then your peices will end up looking like you bought them from Ennis or Ethan Allen. I suppose that's the look that a lot are after though and that's fine if it's what keeps the wife happy when it's placed in the house.

That's alright, it simply leaves more stock for those of us whom appreciate something different. ;)
my 2 cents

[lou sansone]

hi mike and others

As I mentioned in my previous post, I did not want to convey sour grapes or any such thing. If that is how my response came across, please forgive me. It was not intended in that way. I agree with those who replied that unusually colored wood may offer an opportunity for some real stunning furniture pieces. By all means I would use the wood and see how it works out. I agree with you that the price is well worth it no matter what the case. I could only comment based upon the photos and it did seem possible that what you had was some maple that was predominatly heart wood with figure. From your additional commnets it seems that I was wrong.
best wishes with you nice find.

respectfully
lou

[Mike Parzych]

No problem Lou. The first pics didn't truly represent the wood.