Spalted pecan in varathane

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Gary Beasley

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Marietta, Ga. USA
I cut some blanks from a nicely spalted piece of pecan the other day and decided to harden them up a bit with Varathane Wood Hardener. I put the pieces into a jar and pour a couple of inches of hardener into the jar and put the lid on. After shaking it a bit to wet the wood I left it sit for a day to wick the solution in to the wood. Halfway through I took them out and put them back in the other end up to ensure evenness.
I was quite surprised when I took the out to dry today to find streaks of blue coming out of the spalting. There must have been something in the fungal byproducts that had dye qualities to it.
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Whatever is causing the coloration, it looks to be some pretty cool material to work with.

Be sure and post pics of the finished project as I'm curious as to how it turns out.

Good luck!
 
I got two out of four pens turned from these blanks that had the blue stain showing. These are going to Turn for the Troops sponsored by the local Rockler. They send the kits to our club and we check them out, make pens and check them back in. Rinse and repeat. They are collected and sent to the troops a couple of times a year.
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A few notes on this. I soaked them before drilling and noted damp shavings when drilling them out. Left them sit a while to outgas and found the tubes too tight a fit so I had to ream the hole with the drill to loosen it. Would recommend drilling before the soak then running the bit through again after drying.
I find also that drilling dead center on the blanks is not optimum with spalting. Instead I place the hole next to a spalt line on the end to be sure I get a pattern when done turning being sure theres enough meat left to get the job done.

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Woodchipper said:
That could be a fungus. I have a fellow who sent some blue pine blanks which have blue streaks due to fungus in the wood.
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This would be the case. Spalting is the result if fungi doing things within the wood. As far as I understand, there are two key kinds: White Rot fungi and Blue Stain fungi (which can actually stain the wood a wide range of colors, blue being fairly common and more popular). The common "black" spalting lines is actually the result of white rot, when different colonies of the white rot (or specifically, its mycelium, the actual fungal colony...in contrast to "mushrooms" which would be the colony's spore-producing fruiting bodies that only show up for a short time each year) come together. The colonies don't like to co-mingle, so they cordon off "their" wood with some dense hyphae-laced boundaries...those very dark blackish lines.

www.sciencedirect.com

The dark side of fungal competition and resource capture in wood: Zone line spalting from science to application

On wood surfaces and in planar section, zones lines appear as narrow and sharply delineated dark lines within wood visibly altered (“spalted”) by the …
www.sciencedirect.com www.sciencedirect.com
 
jrista said:
This would be the case. Spalting is the result if fungi doing things within the wood. As far as I understand, there are two key kinds: White Rot fungi and Blue Stain fungi (which can actually stain the wood a wide range of colors, blue being fairly common and more popular). The common "black" spalting lines is actually the result of white rot, when different colonies of the white rot (or specifically, its mycelium, the actual fungal colony...in contrast to "mushrooms" which would be the colony's spore-producing fruiting bodies that only show up for a short time each year) come together. The colonies don't like to co-mingle, so they cordon off "their" wood with some dense hyphae-laced boundaries...those very dark blackish lines.

www.sciencedirect.com

The dark side of fungal competition and resource capture in wood: Zone line spalting from science to application

On wood surfaces and in planar section, zones lines appear as narrow and sharply delineated dark lines within wood visibly altered (“spalted”) by the …
www.sciencedirect.com www.sciencedirect.com
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Interesting, thanks for the info.
 
Mike said:
Interesting, thanks for the info.
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Yeah! Well, I've been looking into spalting my own wood. When you look into some of the best spalted pieces out there from well known turners, they usually spalt their own wood. Not sure if I'll be able to, it generally requires a wetter climate than Colorado usually has, but, if you can get ahold of the right species of fungi, you can spalt your own wood, and often spalt it WAY better with so much more lines and staining than naturally spalted wood.
 
Taking my own advice and trying out some ornamental cherry blanks. Only taking a couple of hours soaking, going to leave it dry for a couple of days. Doesn't make the wood as firm as Cactus Juice though its a definite improvement over nothing. Quite a bit cheaper alternative to buying the pump, chamber and juice.
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Interesting fact. The spalted cherry made no color stains at all. I suspect its because the wood has been dry for almost a decade. The pecan was relatively fresh. I had to dry it in the toaster oven so the fungus was freshly killed. Other option is it was a different species of fungus spalt and biochemically different. May never know whats really going on.
 
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