Spaulted wood

[David Wilhelm]

I have logs lying in the woods doing their thing, blown over trees in the air. Blocks buried in mulch, blocks stacked in open weather. I've even heard of burying blanks in woods dirt and manure to increase spaulting. I have noticed that all the trees (hard wood) taken down when the sap is high has a more uniform spaulting with just simple stacking in the edge of the tree line keeping them shaded most of the time. Is there a point that you cover or shelter the wood? I've got one maple tree that just doesn't seem to want to any spaulting lines.. Thoughts and Ideas please

[Brian McInturff]

Throw the tree into an area that is swampy half the time. Or put the blank into a garbage bag with a 1/4 cup of water thrown in and tie the bag up. It'll spalt.

[David Wilhelm]

A friend has used this home brew and says it works well on wood that will spault.


1-qt water
2-cp Hi nitrogen fertilizer
1-can beer,
1-qt horse manure, (smell of ammonia odor present when it gets wet if you use dry)
1-qt dried oak leaves, ground upMix this up and coat heavy fresh cut ends on each block. Seal in a heavy duty plastic bag for 2 months at temps above 65 degrees. You can also coat your roughed out blanks and seal in bags as well. Signs of effect will be growths of mushrooms and other organics. He also confirms that the higher the sap level at time of harvest and using this brew will give better results.

[David Wilhelm]

Still looking for people who force/hurry spalting. I searched this forum last night, and found a post that linked to Russ's Corner. It's pretty much the same recipe as the one I have above. This thread was i think from back in 07. I have some sycamore that was cut Friday morning that i want ot try this on. If you have tried Russ's or anything like it. Please post your results.