Hi all, I turned a ceder log that was cut in mid summer so I know it was still very wet. It was outside and frozen when I turned it. My question is why do I have bule streaks on the turning, they go all the way through and are very pale in color. There were no holes from bugs. Thanks for any help.
Two words..... Mineral Stain. Look to the Forest Laboratory website (sorry, I don't have the link available to me at the moment) and look up mineral stain and/or blue stain for cedar wood. For most woodworking activities, the staining is undesirable. For some woodturners, it's a nice discovery.
- Andrew
Sounds like blue stain, which, IIRC, occasionally occurs from the sap remaining in the wood.
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One word - fungus.
Link is not II, so you'll have to go through the basic site to bluestain.
For Blue Stain, yes, the word is fungus. For Mineral Stain or other Chemical types of stains (which is far more prevelant in Cedar than Blue Stain coloration), it's not fungal activity as the direct cause. Mineral Stain, Blue Stain or some other type of wood coloration doesn't make too much difference anyway in how it's processed and potentially used.
- Andrew
Of course, if it were mineral, they would also be present in the heartwood.
And here, they'd be green.
And why is that?
Not sure by what you mean by "here". Do you mean in your physical location? Or do you mean in the heartwood as opposed to sapwood? Because it's Cedar that the original posteer was talking about? Something else?
Mineral stains can be a wide range of colors depending on: wood specie, age, physical location, specific minerals present in the soil/water, and many other factors working in concert with each other.
Blue stain, contrary to it's name "Blue" isn't always blue and can present itself with a wide range of colors as well. Again, it depends on several factors as to what you're going to get and it can be many different colors adjacent to each other in the same section of wood as well.
- Andrew
Still no comment, George? Maybe you missed this post. I'll give you a little more time....
- Andrew
I see you've started posting again, George. Maybe now you can explain.
- Andrew
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