Question about Pine

My limited experience with pine is that it will likely develop black stains from water, mold and possibly some bugs. I don't find the black to be attractive. Because it is softwood, I think it may be more prone to going punky without the nice spalting. Interested to hear other comments. Billh

Sapwood will develop "bluestain" from a fungus. Interior may pick it up after a while, but the amount of resin in the way, and the loss of moisture usually confine it to sapwood.

I had a hunk of pine sitting in the garage that I turned a bowl out of, and it had a little spalting. It was sort of a sky-blue, instead of the black I see on the maple I've found, but it was certainly there. Of course, then I covered up all the blue by taking the propane torch to the thing. Kinda made it look like a Zebra- I figured I'd try it out, since picking up the pine was a mistake in the first place. The wife liked the effect an awful lot- but I'm still no fan of pine.

I turn a fair bit of Norfolk Pine (which does not have as much resin as some other pines) here in Hawaii, and it indeed does spalt nicely. The key is keeping it wet enough until spalting goes to the state you want. If the moisture drops too much, the spalting will stop.

Most of the Norfolk Pine bowls sold here in Hawaii are spalted, some of them so heavily you can't see any light colored wood any more!

Good Luck!

--Rick

kwilhite wrote: