Exploding Hackberry

[Brian McInturff]

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51042I turned this a while back. The wife saw and and saidshe could salvage it if I could find enough of the parts. Well I guess I found enough. This didn't explode until I was buffing the finish out. I had it spinning at about 500rpm. The force of it turning is what caused it to explode. It split in half right at the tennon. The piece with the tennon stayed in the chuck and the other half flew against the wall and shattered. This wood was real punky, to the point it was hard to get a shear cut. I should've known better. The piece sits on the mantle with the good side showing and an artificial flower arrangement in it. All in all I guess she saved it because we get a lot of comments about it.

[Corey Hallagan]

It's a beautiful piece of spalted wood Brian. Too bad she blew up on yeah but you got a pretty good fix.

Corey

[Glenn Hodges]

If you weren't a member, welcome to the club.

[Paul Greathouse]

Hello Brian

That's an interesting piece. I'm not a turner but I admire the work that the turners do here at SMC. I've got a question about the grain patteren on your piece. I have some 1x8 and 1x6 Magnolia that has a very similar pattern. Would you happen to know what the black lines are. My Magnolia has the same black lines and I was curious what caused it.

Are the lines something that naturally occur, or is it something that happens to the log after it has sat for a while (someone I know said possibly a bacteria of some sort). My Magnolia logs waited for 6-8 months from the time they were cut down, before they were sawed into lumber.

[Tom Sherman]

Paul those black lines are what's known as spalting. It is basically mold of sorts. Can happen to most woods.