question about spalting

[Mark Pruitt]

I harvested some spalted maple late last November and sealed the ends of the logs. I finally got around to rough turning some of it a little over three weeks ago. The bowl in the attached picture was wet turned and soaked in DNA for 24 hours. It was wrapped in newspaper and shelved for 21 days. When I pulled it out of the paper, the spalting "lines" had turned from black to green. I finish turned it and have left it sitting for two days and the lines are still green. The picture doesn't pick it up very well, you have to look hard to see it but trust me these spalting lines have a definite green hue to them.

This being my first experience working with spalted wood, I have these questions.

-Is this normal?
-Will the lines become black again in time?
-Is there anything I can do to control that process?
-Has anyone else seen this happen to spalted wood?
61237

[Mark Cothren]

Is your DNA radioactive??? :eek: :D

[Mark Pruitt]

Is your DNA radioactive??? :eek: :D
I hope not!:eek: :rolleyes: :p

And as far as I can tell the can doesn't say "Made on Mars" nor did a little green man sell it to me.:p

[Jim Becker]

The black lines are calcite from the decomposition'fungal growth process. (They will take an edge off your tooling lickety-split, too...) I'm not sure why you're getting the color shift as I've never used the DNA method.

[Tom Crockett]

So then that leads to my questions,,,,,

I just recieved a spalted maple block off e-bay. Still feels awful wet and moldy. What process hints has everybody got for drying it a bit and turning, sanding, finishing suggestions???

[Leo Pashea]

This being my first experience working with spalted wood, I have these questions.

-Is this normal?
-Will the lines become black again in time?
-Is there anything I can do to control that process?
-Has anyone else seen this happen to spalted wood?
61237

I can answer your questions regarding your spalted Maple:

1. Yes, it is very normal to have green coloration among the spalt lines. I have a few spalted Maple turnings that have grass-green spalting, along with other colors such as brown, yellow and of course, black.

2. No, the lines will remain the color you see now. It is basically the behavior of the fungus in the wood. I'm not sure if there is a good answer as to why this happens, but it does, especially in the Acer species.

3. As mentioned above, I'm not sure you can control it.

4. I have seen this happen to not only Maple, but Hackberry, Ash and Birch.

Actually, I have had very positive comments regarding turnings with this multi-colored spalting. If life deals you lemons..................

[Jim Ketron]

I have had some Red Maple do the same!
Have fun with it, I think it's pretty cool!

[Brian McInturff]

Elm does the same. I posted pics awhile back of a bowl and it had plenty of green. I think your black lines would've turned green while drying anyway regardless of the DNA. As was said earlier the green is from fungus, mold to be more accurate or that's what a arborist told me anyway. If you go with a gloss finish it can really look cool when the light hits it. Gotta love Spalting!!
Brian

[Mark Pruitt]

Thanks all for the replies. I guess that with all I had read about spalting and with all the pictures of spalting I had seen, I had never seen anything but black lines, so was pretty surprised to see green. I have close to a dozen more that have been roughed and DNA'd and will be completing them over the next few weekends. I'll be interested to see what the rest of it brings.

I'm kinda surprised our resident chemist hasn't chimed in.:p :D

[Quinn McCarthy]

Mark and all

The spalting in wood comes from two uncompatible fungal colonies coming together. They lay down a barrier between them which is what you see in the wood. These fungi are members of the white rot family.

White woods like maples, basswood, apple and beeches are the most suseptable to these fungi.

Quinn

[George Tokarev]

Good on you, Quinn. I see you've taken the time to look it up. For others who haven't, the following is quite interesting. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/producing-spalted-wood.pdf

[Dario Octaviano]

I've seen differnt colors of spalt; black, green, brown, and reddish-brown.

I think most are dictated by the wood and fungi but some maybe altered/influenced by what you add to encourage fungi growth.

Some of my red-alder had very green spalt lines.

[Mark Pruitt]

Good on you, Quinn. I see you've taken the time to look it up. For others who haven't, the following is quite interesting. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/producing-spalted-wood.pdf
George,
I was aware of that article. I had read it a couple times and have now read it again. It's a good article but it does not seem to speak to the questions I posed in my OP to this thread. I appreciate your posting it, but if you have some thoughts about my questions I am certainly interested in hearing them.:)

[Jim King]

Down South we have several types of spalt also. My favorite is the one that looks like snakeskin.

[Quinn McCarthy]

George

I had to take a class on wood Fungus ID in forestry school.

The USDA FPL web site has great information on just about anything wood related.

Quinn

[Greg Cole]

I have purchased some spalted maple that was literally dripping wet when I got it & had a little white fuzz on it. The cardboard wrapped around the boards was totally limp.
I stickered & stacked them in a small room with a dehumidifier for a week or so and they were nice n dry.... I was surprised to see only one board out of 9 had some distortion from the forced drying.

Ok, so I didn't spin the spalted maple..... but thought I'd toss in my $0.02 about drying.

[George Tokarev]

George

I had to take a class on wood Fungus ID in forestry school.


Forestry, eh? Out there in MN? One of the best over in Syracuse. Neat labs. Used to bum with 'em. Me just IA courses.