Spalting own wood?

A

Andy Johnston

Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
189
Bill Moran had maple boards buried in his shop for this purpose. I also have done some on partially spalted wood. I wanted more so I wrapped them in black plastic bags, made sure they were damp, put them in the eves in the garage. Left them for about a year. I did work but there is a fine line between good spalt and rot.
 
Shoot Faron Moore (user here) an email, I believe he works with a wood turner who cultivates specific fungi/mold/bacteria for the purpose of spalting.
 
Thanks guys. I'll give him an e-mail later and see what he says. I wasn't able to find the other post you were talking about but I'm not too worried about it.
 
Hey Andy- I don't know if anyone has shown you this or mentioned it. It's a custom google search for BladeForums... it still leaves a lot to be desired, as it won't always find what you want. There are some threads that I started (so I frick'n know they exist! :grumpy: LOL) that it can't seem to find. But... it's head and shoulders above the BF search bar!!! :)

https://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=011197018607028182644:qfobr3dlcra


If you mess around with this, I'd love to see what you come up with. There is a fella not too far from me that does fancy turned vases and such, that did some home-brewed spalting on big Alder planks that was awesome. But I don't know exactly what he did (holding it close to his vest I guess). He mentioned peeing on the boards :confused:, and I really have no idea if he was serious or just jerk'n my chain. I've always assumed he was just fool'n, but I don't know. LOL
 
Darkness and moisture are needed. If I was going to do a log today I would wrap it in black plastic put some shovels of dirt from the dairy farm on it and pour a couple quarts of cheap malt liquor on it add some oak leaves and wrap it tight and wait. I experimented a lot with it and ended up ruining a lot of wood , like Mr Richards said there is a fine line between good stuff and rotten wood. I ruined a lot of wood. I developed a respiratory problem and it scared me away
 
Your best chance is with wood that has already begun to spalt.
That way the fungus is already there. You just need to maintain conditions to allow it to grow.
Covered to keep out the direct light and slow the drying helps.
Other than that you just wait and see what happens.
 
Thanks guys! I will definitely get a respirator before I start experimenting with stuff. Being a biology major (for now) I know how nasty fungal spores can get.

Nick, some guys say peeing on the wood helps because urine contains a lot of nitrogen that the fungus needs to grow, as nitrogen levels are often a limiting factor in the wild. Peeing on the boards will help fungal growth, but spalting isn't really about how much fungus you have, and if you have to much you will just have a rotted board. Not to mention I don't want piss soaked boards in a warm humid room stinking up the place :p.

Thanks again for all the help.
 
What a selling feature lol. "This wood is beautiful where did you get it?" "Oh that, I just peed all over some boards, wrapped em in garbage bags to keep the pee in there good, and let em rot in the shed for a year or so."
 
Half my property is wetlands so I just toss the wood into the swamp and let nature take its course. Had a big beech tree that was uprooted from the last hurricane that I'm going to cut up once the weather breaks and then let it sit back there for a year.
 
I´ve been playing with this idea.
One tip I found (but no personal experience) is to rough shape the wood to handle like dimentions before trying to get the extra spalting.
That way you get the spalting where you want it and not just in the outside that gets cut off.

As mentioned, be carefull health wise
 
That's pretty good advice.
My previous post was material I get from my "brother from another mother", Pete Crowl in Indiana.
I'm also doing some spalted birch here in Northern Minnesota.
The bacteria that cause the spalting are seeking the sugar in the sap. The black lines are barriers they create between the different "colonies" of bacteria. (They don't get along so well.)
Pete has had quite a bit of success.
Be patient.
You need to cut a tree down just at the right time. Just taking a piece of wood and getting it wet and so forth doesn't work.
You need a live wet and full of sap tree.
Then the pieces need to lay off in the woods a good year or so.
Then need to be cut up and dried.
And then stabilized.
If you want some of your own material in 2 years - start now. :eek:

Rick Brown said:
Half my property is wetlands so I just toss the wood into the swamp and let nature take its course. Had a big beech tree that was uprooted from the last hurricane that I'm going to cut up once the weather breaks and then let it sit back there for a year.
Click to expand...
 
I've got a dead apple tree that should have some spalt come and cut it down !
Remember to stabilize spalted wood as the spalted part is too soft
 
Thanks Karl that helps a lot. I was thinking I might be able to just get a hunk of maple and spalt it but it makes sense that you would need green wood. I wasn't expecting to have any of my own material anytime soon so that's good :p. There are some maples on our property back home that my dad and I have been talking about taking down to start a food plot in so I will probably have some trees to work with soon enough. Once I have some trees cut down I will start experimenting and post any progress I have. Thanks again!
 
It has to have moisture to work. It has been a while but from memory it seems like the number was 18% minimum moisture for spalt to grow. Once the wood drops below that the spalt will stop growing. It needs heat to but I dont remember the number for that, you wont develop much in the winter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top