Large Chunks of Soft Maple Any Good

Sure. Soft maple is good. It's not quite as good, in my opinion, as hard maple but it's fine. I've even got a few soft maple logs (12' length) with figure in the spalting pen that I need to take out and see how they did over the summer. We don't get a lot of maples around here except in the urban areas so I'm happy when I get any maple at all.

- Andrew

The majority of the figured maple (curly, flamed, etc.) commercially available is of the soft variety. I'd say "Go for it!"

-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

All wood is good. Some better than other. Cut some blocks and throw a few out behind the shop, check them occasionally. When it just starts to degrade (spalting) it can have a beautiful figure. I have some silver maple. The unspalted bowls are ho hum, but I can always use the practice.

When you get a t>

Thanks to all of you. It sounds like I have a lot of fun work ahead of me.

Phil,

Never give up a chance to try a new or different type of wood. The pleasure is all in the knowledge gained through experience!

Regards,

Christopher

These can make some excellent bowls. If you can get some pieces just above ground level, where the "legs" of the tree spread out you will probably find flame or fiddleback figure out near the bark edge. Also, in the trunk wood if you seal large pieces and let them season for a year or more you may find excellent spalting patterns. I have done lots of spalted soft maple pieces and they can be spectacular. Spalting in soft maple resembles thin black lines in random patterns that are quite striking and beautiful. Completely seal some pieces with anchorseal and wait. You may be very pleasantly surprised!

-Jim Gott- San Jose, CA

You certainly don't want to seal them up completely. You won't get any spalting formation that way. If it's already spalted then sealing it up will halt the decay processes and let it dry. That's good but it won't let any fungus in there otherwise.

Stand the wood on end (endgrain down to the ground) and seal the top endgrain. It's best if you'll have some organic matter (leaves, manure, non-sterile earth) under the wood in order to increase the chances that the right kind of fungus is present to do the spalting in the first place. No guarantee that you'll have the right environmental conditions or that you've got the right kind of White Rot fungus to do the spalting but at least you're giving it a chance this way.

- Andrew

Or, for good predictability, I have found the best approach to be lying the piece on its side and rotating every couple of months to get the spalting more evenly distributed. Keep damp and cool by whatever required. For me, shade and a tarp good enough.

If it's anywhere near the bark or dirt, there'll be plenty of spores. Don't worry about non-wood organics, they aren't what the fungus eats.

I'm trying to find a page, It had what looked like very good instructions on how to get the fungus growing, using a mix of things, and putting them+the wood in a bag. in article 400ac267 snipped-for-privacy@newspeer2.tds.net, George at someone snipped-for-privacy@microsoft.com wrote on 1/18/04 9:34 AM:

I run a commercial spalting operation for, chiefly, 3 companies in California that mill the 8 - 15' logs and resell. I know one of them sells to a guitar manufacturer. I mainly deal with American Sycamore, White Oak and Sweetgum now and ship 2 to 3 times a year several hundreds logs. That business is built around predictability from start to finish. Your description of your method isn't predictable and just plain wrong in places. I'm not saying that you don't get results but you're not getting them because of why you might think all the time. Take the following as someone who knows his stuff INFORMING you and not arguing with you. That's how it's given.

"lying the piece on its side and rotating every couple of months .... more evently distributed"

Bad practice...

1) You're hurting the woods' protection (bark) by keeping the bark in contact with the ground. 2) The fungus doesn't pass through the bark and into the sapwood from the earth unless there's an opening in the bark to allow it. Even so, it's not optimal and sporatic at best. 3) You're taking far too much time by turning every couple of months. Depending on where you live, you only have 3 to 8 months (or more if you're in a tropical climate) of environmental conditions able to support this kind of fungal growth. Disregard this if you have an environmentally controlled operation but I know you don't.

If you'll simply put your pieces with one end-grain section down (or against or whatever to get contact with your soil/bed mixture) then the fungus can spread throughout the entire section. Remember the idea of wood being a bundle of straws? The fungus gets sucked up, in a way, into the wood this way along with the moisture present (and continually refreshed if needed) in the soild/bed mixture. You'll not only get better dimensional spalting patterns but you'll get it higher "up" into the log.

"Keep damp and cool..."

What do YOU think these fungus need in growing conditions? It's certainly not damp and COOL. There are defined parameters of growth needed to support these particular fungus.

"...shade and a tarp...."

Shade is fine. Direct, intense light isn't good for the wood or the surrounding growing environment. A tarp is fine as long as it's not ON the wood itself. Keep it above it or you'll have other problems (but may be unaware of them as they crop up later)

"If it's anywhere near the bark or dirt, there'll be plenty of spores."

Not even close. Maybe where YOU spalt your pieces there are plenty of these particular fungus but certainly not everywhere. There are specific fungus involved here and they aren't everywhere. Move 5 feet away and you may not have enough to colonize to the degree necessary for spalting or you'll get minimal results.

"Don't worry about non-wood organics, they aren't what the fungus eats"

Nor are these particular fungus (the specific fungus' involved in the process that we call "spalting") lignin eaters. There's EATING and then there's LIVING. Do you live in what you eat? No. Neither do these particular fungus. The White Rot fungus (of which the "spalting" fungus is a part of) don't do much structural damage to the wood. The real damagers are the Brown Rot fungus'. Having a good wood, non-wood, and generally fungal-friendly environment (such as leaves, manure or other non-sterile as I mentioned below) is essential to supporting these fungal colonies. The specific fungus involved here has to be present in whatever soil/bed mixture you make the wood come into contact with as well. Simply having fungus (in general) isn't good enough. This is the same idea as people simply putting a piece of wood into a plastic bag and getting mold/mildew growth and thinking that it's spalting. HA! They may indeed get some spalting but it's certainly not due to the mold or mildew. But try telling them that.

- Andrew

SNIP ----------------

------------------------------------------------- Andrew, I have never seen spalted oak. Most around here (central Texas) seems to just go from OK to soft to rot. I have some white oak, red oak, and post oak and some hackberry that I'd like to try to spalt. Do you use the same fungus "farm" for your oak as you do for the others? I have a spalted oak bowl blank. If I use the shaving from this blank as a starter mulch, should it do ok on the oak? TIA for additional info.

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

Most of the oaks do that here too. There's a VERY fine line between good and bad with that wood. But I tend to find, too, with most oaks, it's the Brown Rot that gets to it first and does all the decaying too quickly. It's still a fine line regardless the wood but red, black, and most other oaks are bad about that. I have no market for anything other than the White Oaks so I don't bother messing with the others.

However, I DID get my hands on a Blackjack Oak that was spalted as it stood dead. I actually got it for the huge burl it had on it and found the nice surprise of spalting too in the burl and the rest of the trunk. If you've never seen Blackjack Oak wood, it's a natural beauty.... the wood, not the tree. The tree species looks terrible itself. I've made a couple of small things from the rest of the trunk but haven't taken pictures yet. I did just cut out a 16" diameter x 6" thick bowl blank from part of it the other day. Heavy damn wood! I have no lathe to turn that thing yet but hope to by the time it's dry. The burl pieces and rest of the trunk is either in the woodturning blank shed or going to be there by next weekend for a long rest and drying. But I digress....

Don't bother with the red oak unless it's a burl. Same goes for post oak. The spalting you'll likely get isn't too interesting anyway. But that's a personal opinion. The hackberry I have no market for either but I occasionally throw a log in there to spalt. It's spalts well and the definition really stands out with that white white wood. You can get some purples, blues, greens and some reds sometimes with that wood too. Outstanding! I wish I had a market for that as it's a beautiful spalted wood and I get most of my turning stock (certainly all of my domestics) from my spalting cutoffs. So, club members can tell what I'm dealing with in that business recently just by looking at my show and tell items at the meetings. Well, except for the Cocobolo and other exotics. No .... I don't have those woods stashed around here in the Ozarks.

Yes, I use the same "farm" for everything. It's only 1 type of fungus (with some supporting fungus types but basically just one main one) that produces what we call "spalt". It is a White Rot type of fungus.

A short sidenote here that I try to mention once in awhile when we talk spalting: There are all kinds of wood coloration caused by all kinds of mechanisms, organisms (or no organism at all), methods and magic with spalting being just one type.

Therefore, only one type of fungus causes our "spalting". So, why the wide range of colors, patterns, and effects WITH SPALTING (not counting the other types of coloration possible)? There are a lot of factors including minerals in the soil/water, humidity/temp fluctuations, other contaminates in the soil/water, tree reaction due to it's own structure and/or mineral, etc. contents. Lots of things affect it and the best part is, you just never really know until you cut into it. Those things you can't control like you can other factors.

"If I use the shavings from this blank as a starter...."

Not likely. Unless your spalted bowl blank is really wet (not dripping but "wet" or green as we woodturners like to say) and has been kept an optimal temperature to keep those fungus alive and well AND it has enough of those fungal colonies still active AND if they have a ready access to transfer over to your unspalted wood (we're not talking flying spores as in ragweed here!), then it probably won't do it. That's not to say that it's not worth a shot though. In theory, if many conditions are right, then it might work.

- Andrew