A couple of pen turning questions

[Tom Sweeney]

I'm not a turner - so these are pretty basic questions.

I have an old maple tree that has been laying on it's side for a few years. It was rotted from the center out.
Here's a picture:
<img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/wood/tree.jpg">

I started cutting it up tonight. It has some nice spalting but a lot of the wood is pretty "punky".

Is spalted maple desireable for pen turning? I think that most of the spalting is in the soft wood in the center. I might only be able to get stable wood in big enough sections for pen blanks.

If the wood is a little soft cant you stabilize it with CA glue or some such thing?

How big are pen blanks & do you ever make them from raw wood IE: not a store bought pen blank?

I want to give some of this wood to friend that likes to turn pens. If there is no spalting in the stable wood - I guess it would be to boring to turn pens from is that correct? How about if there is some figure instead of spalting - I think there might be some of that also.

I don't want to insult him by sending him a bunch of pieces of wood that he would just have to throw away.

Thanks

[Dennis Peacock]

Spalting is just rot and the wood can be very fragile to turning. Richard Raffan had a piece come apart with him on the lathe that was spalted. I have tried some spalted wood like what you are describing and it CAN come apart with you. Most spalted pen blanks that I buy are "stabilized" by chemical injection that makes the wood sturdy enough to turn.

I would say TRY IT!!!! It's only fallen firewood...!!!! Besides, it could become something extremely beautiful when turned if it stays together.

[Ken Salisbury]

Tom,

It should make really good firewood for this winter !!!!!
<p align="center">
<IMG src="http://www.kenswoodcentral.com/smiley2.gif">

[Scott Greaves]

Hi Tom,

That looks like an interesting piece of wood! Yes, we make pens from home cut wood. Most of the time, in fact! Spalting does make the wood look more interesting, which is good for pens. And it does make the wood harder to work with - softer, flakier, etc.

I would cut the wood 3/4" x 3/4" x 6", or maybe even 1" x 1". Then just to get them started I'd soak them for a couple of hours, or even a day, in Wally's glue and water solution. He uses regular yellow glue thinned with some water and soaks bowl blanks in it. It should work for pen blanks even better. Take 'em out, let 'em dry, and send them to your friend.

Soaking them in the glue solution won't cure the problem, but it should insure that the blank will get there in one piece. Then while he is turning then into pens he will want to use multiple doses of CA glue to harden things up.

Now, if you're really serious about this wood as pen blanks, the best solution is to have them professionally stabilized. It's not cheap, but it's not that bad when you consider what you end up with. I know a guy who does this and gets great results. I've turned a number of pens out of crosscut spalted wood, and have had no problem when they're stabilized.

Good luck with this! It should be fun to make something nice out of this old piece of wood!

Scott.

[Tom Sweeney]

I appreciate the info. I'll finish cutting it up this weekend & see what I see.

Scott here are 2 more pics that have me interested in seeing what this wood looks like.

<img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/wood/curlytree1.jpg">

<img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/wood/curlytree2.jpg">

I'll post another post if it turns out to be anything worthwhile.

[Bob Janka]

On the topic of self-cut wood for turning pens, here's an idea I'm using:

Instead of buying pre-cut pen blanks (average cost ~= $0.80 to $1.25), I purchase turning squares of the exotic woods. A turning square usually measures the same width and height and is fairlly long. For example, 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 12". When cut on a band-saw (tiny kerf), such a square yields 8 large pen blanks (3/4" x 3/4" x 4 3/4") and a bottle stopper or ornament blank (1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 2 1/2").

I found an oversize turning square of Bocote at W*C* listed at 2" x 2" x 24" that was actually 2 3/8" x 2 3/8" x 25 1/8". I sliced off one third of it and got 15(!) large pen blanks (3/4" x 3/4" x 5"). I have plenty of wood to get another 10 large pen blanks and still have a long turning square measuring 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 25". ;)

My yields drop the average cost down to around $0.35.

Hope this helps someone!

Cheers,
Bob

[Bill Grumbine]

Hi Tom

It has been a long time since I answered a pen turning question, but here goes... I used to turn quite a few of spalted maple pens. When I began I had a failure rate of over 90%. However, the pens sold faster than I could make them, so I was determined to figure out a way to improve my success (and my blood pressure!).

I went to the hardare store and bought a can of Minwax Wood Hardener. It is a water thin solution made for restoring rotted wood. The Minwax brand has the advantage over similar products in that I did not have to buy the filler as well.

I went home, cut and drilled a bunch of blanks making sure not to chip out the edges of the holes for the tubes. Then all the blanks were numbered and indexed in such a way so they could be matched up easily later on. After all that, they went into a mason jar filled with the Minwax Wood Hardener.

After several days, the blanks would sink to the bottom, indicating that they had been saturated. At the point I would remove them from the solution and let them dry for several days. Once they were dry, the wood was nice and hard throughout, and turned and polished very nicely. My failure rate dipped to less than 5%.

One other thing of which to be aware, if you are not already, is that spalted wood is full of stuff we know nothing about, and a lot of it is harmful to the insides of your lungs. It is essential that you wear breathing protection for all phases of handling the wood. To do otherwise runs the risk of nothing at all up to complete respiratory failure, with lots of unpleasant points along that spectrum.

Good luck with it. Spalted curly pens are spectacular when they come out right.

Bill

[Kevin Gerstenecker]

Tom, I took a look at the close up pictures you posted, and judging from the "Ripple" or wavy look to the wood, it is very like to have some nice figure to it. I have cut up a ton of maples over the years, both blow downs and intentional removals. Almost everytime I saw the rippled effect under the bark, that meant that there was some neat figure in the wood in that area. There were times that this was not the case, but not very often. If there is a way that you can salvage the section in the photo you posted, you may be pleasantly surprised by the wood in that section. Good Luck, you may have a gem in disguise! ;)