Prehistoric wood sample

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Ancientwood

Ancientwood

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Forgive me... First post ever....
I work in a diamond mine in Canada, and from time to time we recover wood from the kimberlite volcanic pipes that make up the Diamond ore. The wood is dated at 55 million years old +/- 600,000 years, and it isn't mineralized - i.e. It's not petrified, but was mummified by the process that happened when it fell into the cooling volcanic crater. It can be sawn, sanded and even burnt. The long version of how it happened can be found in some academic papers if you google "mummified wood in kimberlite"

It's closest living relative is a redwood that grows in southern China today. It's somewhat brittle and cracked, so I was hoping to find some advice on stabilizing it before turning a 55 million year old pen or two. Eg: has anybody had success with cactus juice or similar on harder woods like redwood?
 
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Hardwoods can in some cases benefit from stabilizing...burls for example. It sure can't hurt to try! You may also want to consider casting under pressure as another thought.
 
I've turned coastal redwood from the western US, but I've never had a chance to turn anything like what you have. Is the Chinese redwood you are referring to "Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)"? If so, it would likely be very different than coastal redwood.

Maybe it will have properties like bog oak. Although your stuff was in the ground about a factor of ten thousand times longer, so who knows. I've seen stabilized bog oak that looked pretty nice.

Casting it in resin could be nice, but it could also make an amazing fossil look like a cheap carnival souvenir. It would need a careful choice of color (if any) to not destroy the value of what you have.

Ed
 
Yep, the university people that have come to study it called it a metasequoia or Dwan Redwood. if I have a choice of colors or none, I'll choose none. Regardless of weather it is interesting to look at, I want to keep it looking as natural as possible. Thanks for the feedback Ed.

Cheers,
Steve
 
triw51 said:
Would like to see some pictures. That sounds like interesting material
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Lots of cracks and voids I'll have to deal with. I need to figure out how to upload photos... Any help?

Steve
I think I got it...
 

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paintspill said:
well I'm sure there are a few guys (and gals) that would like to get there hands on some of that.
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It's unlikely I'll be able to get much more, it's treated with the same level of security as the kimberlite (Diamond ore) at the mine. I had to do a lot of campaigning to get this small piece. If I can get some more, I'll definately try to pass some on to a skilled turner to see how it turns out (I'm not the said 'skilled turner')
 
SteveG said:
It appears this ancient wood also has anti-gravity properties.:wink::eek:

In a more serious mode: This looks like some really cool material, and having verified documentation of its content and origin would likely allow it to demand a very nice price (from the seller's perspective).
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I'd tend to agree with you on its value, but I'm not at all interested in selling it. And because of that I'm happy with the knowledge that I saw it in the living rock that was formed at the time of the last eruptions up there. I would never be able to get much more than what I have and to be honest, all I want out of it is an insert for a fly rod reel seat - building fly rods is even more of a passon for me than wood work.

Cheers,
Steve
 
Oops. Just saw you want reel seat instead of pen...rather than me retyping just read seat where you see pen in the post below.....

Can you saw it into pen blank sized pieces without it crumbling? If so, you might try taking a small cutoff piece that wont' be used for anything and grind it into a powder. I would add that powder to epoxy to color it and use that to fill voids / cracks. Vacuum / pressure would help insure you get it all the way in.

Before getting the epoxy anywhere near your piece, I would make up a small sample batch to make sure your prehistoric wood dust doesn't inhibit the cure of the epoxy.

As an alternative, you could cast the entire thing in either clear casting polyester resin or epoxy (using vacuum / pressure). Then slice it into pen blanks. Repeating the casting if new voids / cracks are discovered during cutting.

Having the clear filled cracks might require painting your brass tubes, but it could look pretty interesting.

I don't think I would try urethane resin (e.g. alumilite). Limited working time to get it all the way into those cracks and the possible adverse reaction between your piece and the resin.

It's all easy for me to say because it's not mine and if it goes bad I'll only feel a little bad while you will feel really really bad.

Before you do something with the 55 million year old wood, maybe you can find some 5000 year old bog oak that has similar issues (cracks / voids) and experiment with that. Or maybe coal would be a good surrogate for yours.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Ed
 
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I personally think that considering it's rarity, and difficulty in getting it, it would be a shame to cut it up and turn such a vast majority of it into shavings. I would keep it just the way it is, possibly use it as a display piece, but as cool as I think it would be to have some sort of turning from it, and a great conversation piece, I would value it more in it's natural form.
 
Good point, Ed. I did cut a couple of blocks out of it this afternoon and it cut very much like I'd expect coal to cut. The dust was very fine, and would be perfect for colouring resin. I'll have a try with some of the off cuts first.

I'm keeping half of the piece for the mantle piece, but being a greedy kind of guy, if the pieces I have work out, I expect the rest of it to be worked as well... Then it's off to the company president to beg for more...
 
A pen for the company president might just work for getting a better supply. Really sure I would not have cut it either. Kinda like getting a moon rock, then cutting it up for a project. To each his own.
 
Save all of your trimmings and saw dust. Coat a tube in adhesive and roll it in the dust and trimmings, then overcast it in resin. You can make dozens or hundreds of pens from one block like that.
 
Chasper said:
Save all of your trimmings and saw dust. Coat a tube in adhesive and roll it in the dust and trimmings, then overcast it in resin. You can make dozens or hundreds of pens from one block like that.
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Good call Chasper, I'll give it a try.
 
low_48 said:
A pen for the company president might just work for getting a better supply. Really sure I would not have cut it either. Kinda like getting a moon rock, then cutting it up for a project. To each his own.
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Yeah, I'm with you. But part of the pleadings and begging I did to get the sample was to tell him that I was certain I could make the wood workable. I figure proving it by delivering it back to him might be worth the sacrifice in the long term
 
Just curious - what does the company/president do with the wood that they are so reluctant to part with it?
 
Hi Edgar,

It's a security thing, or at least a perception of security thing. You can imagine that security at a diamond mine is high. The wood comes from the same rock as the diamonds and we have a blanket rule that everything that comes from the ground is treated the same weather it's diamonds, the kimberlite ore, granite or wood. So the answer is nothing. To the best of my knowledge, this piece is only about the third that's ever left the site like this. Most of the wood that is found is obliterated by the excavation process, so to fond a piece like this is rare.

I think I've attached a pic of some wood embedded in the ore in one of our underground tunnels, the only way to get it out is to blast the rock
 

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Thanks for the photo, Steve. That certainly helps to put it in perspective. Congratulations on the score & I hope you will be able to get more sometime. That is a rare find indeed.
 
I finally got a pen turned from part of the sample I have. I decided not to cast it because the wood is so dark and wanted to get a more 'authentic' look. Like it or not, it turned out exactly how I wanted it to (much better in real life rather than the photos - that I think are attached)

I also got one of our diamonds set in the top to set it off. It's a big hit up here on site!

A big thanks to all who gave advice and encouragement on this one!!!

Cheers,
Steve
 

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WOW!! That is absolutely incredible, Steve. Beautiful job, staggeringly lovely pen. You have folks on site who grind and set the diamonds, too? I'd like to hear how difficult you found it to turn.
Congrats!
 
Katya said:
WOW!! That is absolutely incredible, Steve. Beautiful job, staggeringly lovely pen. You have folks on site who grind and set the diamonds, too? I'd like to hear how difficult you found it to turn.
Congrats!
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Hi Katya, we don't cut/set stones on site, but we do have the opportunity once a year to buy our own product that has been cut and polished and brought back to site at very reasonable pricing. I got this done at a jewller in Calgary.

As for how it turned... Not so awesome, I had two pieces that self destructed on the lathe. I think it was a combination of not enough CA on the tube and an issue I had because I used a 'home made' vacuum chamber that imploded about 15 minutes after I achieved a decent vacuum. The Cactus Juice did penetrate fairly well, but I would have liked to give it another half hour or so. I've learned a few tricks that will improve the success if I get a chance to do it again.

Cheers, Steve
 
Great looking pen & definitely one of a kind!
You could almost say that it's "older than dirt"
 
Wow!! Yes, I would think that pen would be put away out of reach but in sight. I really hope you get your hands on more. I would love to see more of those. Great job considering what you had to work with.
 
I can stabilize it for you, for a few blanks.

While not as valuable as the diamonds, there certainly is some market value. If you think about Ebony going at $100/BF and the price of ancient Kauri from New Zealand, and this is even more rare. There is a market here.
 
Steve, is way cool IMO! I think that wood is equivalent to meteorite or such. Just due to the origin of the material, and the difficulty and definable rarity of it, I think it would fetch a tremendous price if you did in fact market it.

Thanks for sharing a glimpse of it. How did it finish, was it like any other resin blank since you 'Cactus Juiced' it?

Thanks again for the share brother!!!
 
Being that it's Christmas time, and I'm thinking what might be under the tree tomorrow...I wonder how similar this is to a lump of coal?
 
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