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SPALTED WOOD
my sample: years ago I had a beautiful weeping willow tree in the back yard of the house I lived in, but over time it died and I had all but the stump removed, figuring I would save the cost of the stump removal by doing it myself, with a blith disregard for my tendancy to procrastinate. I did dig it out finally, but it took me a few years to finish the job and the wood spalted. I found a piece of solid area and cut it out and that's where this little cube came from. There were other areas in the wood that had a pretty much identical amount of spalting but which were already soft, or even pulpy and rotten, by the time I noticed the spalting. This piece is totally solid and is just under 2 inches in each dimension. I treated it with Lindseed Oil after sanding it, about 15 years ago, and haven't touched it since. The pics make the wood look just slightly more golden yellow than the tan color that it really is. The spalting can be seen better if you click on either pic to get an enlarged pair.
spalted maple bowl turned from a section out of a large slab of spalted maple given to me by Jim Glynn (thanks, Jim). One enlargement is available and there is a substantial flaw on the left side of the bowl (a crack).
other views of the same bowl --- the two on the right are after the application of a coat of natural stain. Most maple has a strong tendancy to yellow with the application of most moistening agents and this is no exception. In fact, I found that this yellowed even more than is the average and that may be due to the fact that spalted wood is usually relatively soft (this piece certainly is) and thus very absorbent of the finishing agent.
WOW !
These two shots are of a piece of spalted elm that is unusual in that the spalting is obviously quite advanced but the wood is reportedly completely solid. If you are not familiar with spalting, do NOT let this piece make you think that this is what spalting often looks like. Spalting this advanced is almost always accompanied by some rot. This is a really amazing piece. It is just over 8" square by just over 3" thick and it sold on eBay for $80, which works out to $60/BF which is expensive but not at all unreasonable for such a unique piece.
thick maple spalted veneer made by a jewlery box maker who cuts his own veneer. The last piece shows how spalting can take place right next to solid wood, although this is fairly rare since wood-rot generally comes closely on the heels of spalting.
the two sets on the left and the two sets on the right are all spalted birch mini-planks about 6" in length. The top two sets are book-matched and I believe the bottom two were cut as book-matched but gave a poor match because spalting does not run uniformly through the wood.
A box made from spalted sycamore
bowls made from spalted pecan and spalted maple
bowls made from spalted sugar maple and spalted apple. I doubt the pink color in the sugar maple (notice how the background, which was probably white, also shows up pink). Also, notice how on the apple bowl, the side facing the camera has no spalting. Spalting is unreliable and not at all uniform throughout a piece of wood.