Scored Some Spalted Elm Handle Material

J

J.S. Carter

Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
915
Thought I'd share some of what I scored back in my woods on our last family outing to cut firewood... Some Spalted Elm!
This should make some good lookin handles! whatchya think?

f_SpaltedElm1m_ac354b8.png
 
Looks Like some cool stuff! I love spalted wood. It does look a little wormy but the spalting is great.
 
That is nice, what kind of Elm? I thought American Elm or whatever it was was mostly died out to Dutch Elm disease years ago, although I think I read some Elms were left and resistant to the disease??
 
There are still a fair amount of elms left but they are dying off. Being that what J.S. Carter has here is spalted, you may be looking at a victim of Dutch Elm disease. I have a Elm on my place thats healthy and about 20" in diameter at the base. I have to say though I have seen more dead Elm than living. Of course this is only from what I have seen up here in Mi.
 
It does have worm grooves in it but i like em'! I think they give it more charector (imho)
Dont know to much about D.E.D. but we find beech,birch, oak, sycamore and poplar all spalted too. We find it when the tree had died it gets that way....:confused: dont know...

anywho, well gettem stabilized and fixed to some steel soon, gotta do some heat treat on some O1 and some 1095 real soon
 
I think you should get rid of those pieces of wood! Send them to Holland or so :D
 
What does the end grain look like?? this is where you see the action of the spalt. I have seen a lot of spalted woods that are surface only. Once you shape the handle it all dissapears.

Chuck
 
Nah, it won't work. Tell ya' what, I'll pay shipping and you can send it to me :D Nice score!
 
Sorry to highjack this thread but I thought I would show you guys some of the stuff I have found recently.

A note on spalting: Spalting is a result of decay it is actually very bad for you to breath the dust from spalted wood. It can cause respiratory infections, even give you lesions in your lungs, so wear a dusk mask.

From top left to right is spalted maple, maple burl, spalted poplar, root white ash burl, and on the bottom is some very weird maple. I dont know what was wrong with this tree but it sure looks cool. the very bottom is from the outside under the bark and the other pic is what it looks like inside.
 
I've been trying for two days to get those pics to open, it was worth the wait. I've been planting 100 trees each spring because much of my woods is dying/dead elm. Makes me want to look inside some!!!:D
Thanks for sharin:thumbup:
Matt
 
Nice lookin maple spalt yea got there, Mr Steelshaper, I accidently labled mine wrong those were Birch spalts not Elm ...
So here's the Elm! "Bookmatch" set, about 6" x 2-3/4" x 3/4" Found these again on a family wood cutting trip...

f_ElmSpalt1m_d4e2880.png
 
I love spalted woods!
I've seen a tutorial to make normal wood spalted. Has anybody tried that?
 
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