spalted bowl

[cedar n silky]

After a long break from turning (well a few months or so), I was down in the shed looking for wood to burn in my kitchen stove (sacralige I know). (Winter is coming on fast, and it looks like it will be a wet one here).
Well I put the chainsaw through a log I had stored away under cover outside, and it was nothing special, just a bit of very young red ash I think. Well sometimes you get a lovely surprise, and this being about the wettest place in NSW, I often complain that I'd like to be in a dryer place, but than I guess you wouldn't get these lovely moulds , would you!

[ss_11000]

awesome bowl mate...nice thickness and i like the form too

[DJ’s Timber]

That's a bewdy, love the spalting

[BernieP]

G'Day Cedar

Incredible piece of wood, and the form really makes the most of it, great pic

Cheers
Bernie

[QbnDusty]

How lucky can you get to find a piece of spalted wood like that. Absolutely beautiful and well turned. Good one!!!!

[Darrell Feltmate]

Nice bowl. And the other half of the log is....?

[Gil Jones]

Wow, that is a for-sure bewdy of a bowl!!! The wood looks rather like my spalted Beech. Mother Nature is very good to us.

[dai sensei]

What can I say, wow To think it could have been burnt

It's been very damp here too, but damp not the heavy stuff we need. Unfortunately the only spalting I'm getting looks like plain old mould, all the way through

[tashammer]

...It's been very damp here too, but damp not the heavy stuff we need. Unfortunately the only spalting I'm getting looks like plain old mould, all the way through

Has anyone ever tried innoculation in order to get desired moulds to grow in timber for the "right" sort of spalting?


Welcome back Cedarus in a t'rrific way. Like the Darrell said, what happened to the rest of the log?

[Gil Jones]

Read somewhere that pouring beer on the fresh-cut ends of a green log, and placing one end on the ground can start (or instigate) the spalting process.
My wood starts spalting without any help from me, so I just drink the beer, and hope I don't start spalting.
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Edit: Just found this article on spalting. (not mine)

Spalt Your Own
A Recipe for Creating Spalted Wood

Since the question of spalting comes up time and again, I will share a description of what I use when the natural ingredients aren't available.
A "brew" of some kind is required when the conditions for natural spalting do not exist. There are a lot of ways to induce spalting. Like everything else in woodturning, nothing is "tried and true". You will have to experiment. Some wood spalts. Some wood just rots. Others (cherry and walnut) don't do much of anything.
This spalting brew has everything necessary for almost anything to grow in any wood that wants to spalt. I have used it on maple, birch, beech, sweetgum, oak, alder, holly, and pecan.

• 1-qt water
• 2-scoops Miracle grow
• 2-cans beer, drink one and put th other in the spalting brew.
• 1-qt horse manure, doesn't have to be fresh, but the ammonia odor should still be present when it gets wet.
• 1-qt dried oak leaves

There is nothing sacred about any of the ingredients as long as we have the nitrogen, organics, ammonia, sugar, malt extracts, tannins, and leaf molds - everything necessary for all kinds of things to grow in the wood. The only additional ingredient is heat.
I have used packaged steer manure from the garden store and added a half cup of household ammonia. Don't use the sudsing type because it contains detergents which will kill the growth.
All leaves contain some amount of tannins, oak leaves contain more than others. I have used maple, alder, sweetgum, and apple leaves, but about 3 times more. Wood chips will not work because you need the leaf mold. You can use chunks of rotten wood to replace the leaves, but the spalting is different with more of an area discoloration than the lines we are looking for. The large black areas look good in oak, but not other wood.
Put the wood in a trash compactor bag (they are heavier than the others) when it is fresh cut and still wet. If the ends have dried, saw off a slice to open up the wet wood. It works better in wood cut in the spring when the sap is up and the free-water in the wood is at its highest. Apply a liberal amount of the brew on each end, and seal the bag.
Now we will need that last ingredient, warmth. Store the sealed wood indoors under an old electric blanket during the winter months when the outdoor daytime temperature is below 65-degrees. Otherwise, outside is fine.
Check it after 2 months. You will be looking for a black slimy mess on the wood, with things growing out of it. Mushrooms are good. Clean it up and split it in half if you can. If it isn't what you want, put the halves together and back in the sealed bag.
You can use chunks or shavings of spalted wood instead of the brew, but it takes forever, and sometimes doesn't start because it is dead. The brew is faster, more reliable, and gives better spalting (my opinion).
You could just seal the wet wood in the bag without adding anything, but some will spalt, and some won't.
And, when all of the ingredients are available in nature, then you don’t need a brew to start the process. Just throw the wood under a tree, let the grass grow up around it, and nature will take its course. Covering it with some leaves will help. Put something under it to get it off the ground, otherwise it will rot on that side.

[OGYT]

Seems like perfection in spalting, to me. Very well done.
It would have burned too fast anyway, to have done much heating.
I'm just curious how you got it to grow the knife....

[tashammer]

Seems like perfection in spalting, to me. Very well done.
It would have burned too fast anyway, to have done much heating.
I'm just curious how you got it to grow the knife....

he didn't, it's the latest attachment fer the SAK.

[hughie]

Sigh.... given our copious quantities of rain in Sydney...not. I resort to all sorts of formulae and recipes all dumped in a garbage bag and stowed away somewhere safe and hope for the best.

great looking piece

[robynmau]

That piece is just beautiful

I heard you can put yoghurt into a plastic bag, along with your wood and that spalting results in reasonably short time. I don't have to use the method as our wet season does it thing, but seems a very simple idea. Has anyone tried it?

[cedar n silky]

Nice bowl. And the other half of the log is....?

Hi everyone, and thanks for the nice comments.
Darrell/ Tashammer, the rest of the log is about to go down to the workshop and be cut into bowl and box blanks. I imagine the mould (and decay) will keep going even though the wood is pretty dry now (although the humidity around here is still up around 80-90%, and not likely to go away untill around July, August).
Any comments on halting the process (if it is still happening at a cellular level), or do I have to "pull my finger" out and turn it all soon? I would like to take my time with this stuff if possible.