Is spalted wood dangerous?
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- Опубликовано: 15 апр 2021
- Spalted wood is BEAUTIFUL, but tricky to work with.
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Evening mate.
As it's on topic, I've been working with spalted grey birch a LOT recently, mainly due to the ridiculous prices of hardwood at the moment and the fact I have several felled grey birch around my home.
I've had some real issues with how hard it is, literally widening my bandsaw kerf running each pass, and also with how brittle it is, I've cracked a few boards with gentle clamping...
It looks incredible, but my word it's hard. Any advice on spalted grey birch?
I also have a horse chestnut felled last April which was being taken over by white fungus, so it's going to look great when I mill it in a few months, but I'm concerned about how to deal with the inevitable soft spots... any advice on how to handle it from here? Should I get it milled sooner rather than later and let the fungus do it's thing while keeping an eye on it, or leave the trunk whole in hope that the heartwood takes the fungus too?
would love to see what the damage is and how to prevent it and fix it when it happens.
Colin Knecht put out a video yesterday about DIY spalting. Really interesting.
Thanks, I will check that out.
For those who live near central Tennessee, I have live-edge hardwood lumber of many types for sale, including spalted maple. Most of it has been air dried under roof for years. I have a small bandsaw mill, and have decided to sell some of my dried lumber, and will not charge too much since it is rough cut.
I answered a craigslist add where a guy had cut a large maple stump out of his front yard and posted it for free as firewood. When I got it home and cut it up I was so excited to learn that it was all spalted. Been making amazing pieces out of that.
Sometimes the best wood is free. I've got a good source of free wood and have got some really nice pieces with spalting.
A friend made me matching pencil cups out of a piece of spalted maple. They are glorious.
Also, that little cabinet is marvelous.
James, I'm really thankful for all the knowledge you share with us. You're really great. I envy your fluency and eloquence.
I made the legs of a bathroom vanity from spalted maple. There were some soft spots but the legs were just over 4" wide and deep so that didn't affect the holding strength since the soft spots didn't go all the way through. I hadn't worked with wood quite like that before and found the soft spots worked a lot different than the harder areas. It came out really nice. The customer was very happy with it.
I recently found a small piece of spalted maple used to patch a broken pallet. Used it to make a handle for a brass hammer I made. I think its a great look. My piece didn't seem to have any soft spots luckily but now I know what to look out for next time I work with spalted wood. Thanks for the information!
Amazing! You are like an open book in everything that has to do with wood. Thank you, I learn a lot with your videos. 👍❤️
At the end of my property, there is a pretty big gully, around 60 foot wide by around 30 feet deep, with a creek running in the middle of it, When an older maple or cherry falls down there, if a part of the tree is laying in the water, I am sure to have great spalted wood to harvest within a year or two, there is something with the soil and the water down there that turns wood in to spalted very quickly, but not the part that is in the water, typically 2 or 3 feet after the point where is in the water if that makes sense.
I like the art deco styling.
Another good vid. Thanks.
That’s really interesting, I’ve also seen a lot of spalted oak before that was pretty cool.
As usual, another excellent informative woodworking video. Thanks James ❤️
I can't leave the wood store I go to without some spalted, it's often maple. I've used it quite a bit & you just fixed some problems I've had.
Thanks for sharing with us James, lots of great information here. Fred 🙏🏻🙏🏻👍👍👏🏻👏🏻👋👋
Thanks James. I love your channel...
I’ve used some spalted black birch and American beech for making small craft projects. Great videos, I’m subscribed!
Thanks! Every day’s a learning day!
Good explanation of the what and how with spalted woods. +1 to Clearview I've had 2 and they are great machines!
Thanks for sharing those tips!
One of my woodturning friends would make his own spalted maple. He cut the rounds of the tree a bit longer than needed for bowls, placed them on end in the woods near his shop, and covered them with leaves. He would water the stash occasionally and turn the rounds over once or twice. Over time, he found the right process for getting the spalting right. He turned a lot of pieces out of that wood.
Thanks James. I bought a “lot” of spalted 6/4 maple boards that are 13” wide and 11’ long. Been trying to figure out what to do with it, and how to use it. Really appreciate your advice. Eric in Lansing.
I agree with all that you say with many years experience with fugus stained wood. You leave one thing out, YOU MUST HAVE GOOD DUST CONTROL! You are breathing fungus dust! I was processing a couple thousand BF of blue stain pine, a stain caused by fungus. I have good dust control except over the top of my table saw, as my material was rough saw from the mill. I was squaring each board to a standard width. I was developing a lung congestion and cough that lasted long after I finished the job. I also used a lot of spalted maple that required hand sanding with what I thought to be good dust collection. I began to have the same breathing problem. I added a good HEPA vac system and the problem went away.
I am making my own lumber and this was interesting.Something new to look for.
Great information about Spalted wood, thank you
Thanks for the great information James 👍
As always, enjoy your videos. You can also add strength and hardness to degraded wood (or any wood for that matter) by impregnating phenolic resin (even adding color if you like). That is a fairly complicated process, but it can be done. And with a little tweaking, you can add cool colors to it.
Very informative. Many thanks.
Spot on as usual, my friend!
My son has sold a lot of splayed maple as well as maple burls. I always have been amazed when I occasionally help him at the beauty of the wood, although haven’t used for any projects. I prefer to work in steel.
I have a spalted elm log from a tree that fell in my back yard that I am making into a low Roman bench. There’s some very interesting blue streaks along with the black lines. It’s starting to check but i don’t mind since it’s just a work surface.
Thank you, Very timely.
I am turning a bowl from Spalted Tamarind, interesting wood and very hard. And the spalting is beautiful.
Very well articulated, I came because I was curious and now I know!
Excellent video !
Thank you James! You're an awesome teacher and absolutely love the videos and all the tips. Please post a link to that cabinet in the video. Thanks.
Thank You For The Info!!!👍
Thank you my dude I just bought a spalted maple guitar and I just wanted to find out what the heck it is it's just beautiful to look at you explain this very well I appreciate it
Stabilizing resin can not only help with restrengthening the wood, but also prevent any further rot, locking it in place.
Thanks!
I actually got some spalted mango wood from a friend, beautiful stuff. It was left out for 10 years drying so it is punky, a soak in wood hardener made it way more stable
There is a giant black walnut in the woods behind my house that I've been cutting and milling. Idk how to treat it since its very spongy in spots, and almost looks white on the inside with spalting and some heartwood left . Garbage?
Edit: the tree has fallen, but in a giant ditch so 80% is off the ground. Its about 60-70 inches in diameter so its very old. It knocked down 2 more black walnuts that are about 30 inches in diameter that I've been cutting and slabbing with a chainsaw mill. Its just so soft in spots.
Really great info, dude! Thanks a lot! 😃
Here in Brazil I've never seen wood like that... Maybe I'm going to need to make my own. 😕
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
I love maple just in general. So this stuff is just heaven to look at, wonder how well a table would look with this as the top?
I made a shelf from spalter chestnut wood. It is beautiful
Great vid. I've seen this in the uk in beechwood it does look great. Never really understood how the fungus does this, thanks for the info.
Ohhhh I love spalted maple! It is so beautiful
As you talked about the fragility of the wood, my eyebrows crept up onto the top of my head when I thought about all those lathe videos I've seen. I'd never considered how the natural rotting process was, duh!, deconstructing the wood!
Thanks, as always full of information (at least for a beginner like me;) ).
I have spalted red oak (water oak, willow oak) small logs that I got from my garden doing major tree trimming. I sealed them with Anchor Seal, but the ends quickly turned black in the Houston humidity (summer). When I sliced up the logs on my bandsaw, they were amazingly spalted, spectacular actually. But so brash, they're like zebrawood.
From then on, I used oil based primer paint, like KILZ, to seal the ends of oak logs, rather than anchor seal. Given all that, you can spalt your oak just by stacking in your humid and hot garage.
I think White Oak is less likely to spalt like that given its pores are more closed.
I plan on using the oak to make casing and small drawers for a machinist tool cabinet.Oh, and I was concerned about the "infection" so I soaked the boards in outdoor bleach to kill the fungus, hopefully. You don't want your cabinets to sprout mushrooms. I don't know if that will work, or if that would even be a problem.
I stumbled onto some spalted maple. I think I paid $5 for 3/4 x 5 x 36 single board. When the seller asked why I wanted a board that his “regulars” cast off? I told him it’s literally rotten and that is black lines. He actually gave me the rest of what he had. Less than half of the boards were fit to use on a large project. I managed to cobble together some beautiful pieces and made my daughter a recipe box. She was flabbergasted and my son kept asking if I really made it.
I have nothing to say really, but I appreciate your content, and wish to help with the yt-algorithms.
If you are planning to try to do it, it might be a good idea to plan to start soon so time and fungi have a chance to do their thing. Maybe you can do multiple pieces and see how long the process can really take using different methods. Maybe would be good for a collab video with another channel in a different environment?
i was waiting for this one thank u
u didnt talk about finishing and oiling this wood..
i think oiling it can make fungus issues.. im just a hobbyist
I have had no issues with finishing it, even with oils.
I like the look of spalted wood.
I Love It!
Colin Knect (Wood Work Web) just today released a "how-to" video on spalting wood. Great minds?
Did he? It's funny how that works sometimes.
I've also seen it in Live Oak.
spalted wood makes beautiful guitars
It may be beautiful but it is, certainly, no tone wood.
i generally just find some if needed, luckly for me i do smaller pieses so i can even use things like branches
I was expecting you to address the question posed in the title of the video(which is why ai clicked on the video) While you did talk about various issues to do with working with spalted wood, I didn’t hear any mention of any dangers.
Blue stain is quite desirable in some pine wood. It is a fungus that is introduced from bark beetles.
I heard there is a book out called “Spalting 101” that goes into how to make your own.
Ditto many of the comments below. I love Spalted wood, and have made quite a few boxes from it.
Can you link the video where you made that cabinet?
Good information, as always. I picked up a board of spalted maple and hadn't used it yet, but those drawer fronts gave me a very good idea what to do with it. One thing, though: is there any hazard to resawing spalted wood? I wonder of a standard dust mask is going to keep the fungal spores out of my lungs, or if they might hang around in the air after I removed my dust mask.
If you have a severe allergy to fungi, you should consider taking extra precautions. But most people aren't going to have a severe reaction unless they are inhaling a lot of sanding dust. But I would consider that a bad idea with any type of wood. Bottom line, use dust collection when cutting and a dust mask when sanding just as you normally (hopefully) should.
It took a fun gi to make this rotten video, thanks!
thank you . what is valspars wood hardner ?
I had a strong dislike for spalted wood long before it became trendy, and I still do.
WoodworkWeb just posted a video about how to make spalted wood.
What's it called when you have copper in the wood? I'd always thought that was spalted
Is it food safe?
Any danger from sanding and breathing the fungus dust?
I’ve often wondered if there is a health hazard from spores when working with spalted wood (sanding, etc. ). Any info there? Thanks!!
Nice video, thanks. But I avoid spalted material because of allergies to the spores. Avoidance is cheaper than investing in the additional respiratory protection.
You don't need additional equipment to work with it. Any mask that is good enough for fine wood dust will also filter out the spores. (You need at least an N95 mask for fine wood dust.)
On my property, I have plenty of spalted soft maple and alder. I find the Alder easier to work with, less of it is spongy or worse.
Don’t forget about spalted white birch
The sawdust from spalted wood is also more dangerous to breath.
We're talking about mushrooms here. Not mold.
So yeah wear breathing protection but don't freak out about it.
Psychedelic man!
No worries!
I believe I said fungus, didn't I? I may have misspoke once or twice, but I think the only time I said "mold" was when I said "an environment conducive to mold" in reference to the damp conditions that would also foster the fungal growth that causes spalting.
@@StumpyNubs Yes, that's correct. I was referring to the other comments from folks who seemed to be confused and therefore overly worried.
In a similar topic, fungal spores are something to be very cautious about... if you're ever near a cloud of them for some reason. I can't think of how that would happen but just in case... that's a time to worry.
3:54 small independent what?
@@mercoid great!
That's a much better name than "portable sawmill guy"
Jeeze thanks!
Does spalted wood need to be stabilized since it’s partially decayed?
would resin harden and stabilize as well? Like the CA glue? is that something that people do? lol.
I never heard about that wood before, thank you. Have you ever heard of or done anything with fiddleback maple. I was told the maple I have is fiddleback and not tiger. I have not brought it anywhere nor do I know if there is such a thing.
According to my understanding, fiddleback and tiger maple are the same thing.
@@StumpyNubs thank you
I've been slowly accumulating enough ambrosia maple to make a dresser for my daughter. It appears to be similar. The description I find says it is caused by a fungus from the Ambrosia Beetle. Do I need to do anything special with this?
First spalted wood I used was in turning a pen. It did not go well. With your information, I'll give it another try. Thanks.
Ambrosia maple has a difference appearance, and as you noted, is caused by an insect. I have used it in the past and it has the same properties as regular maple.
Spalted by definition is beginning to rot. You just have to catch it while it still has enough integrity to work with it. Ambrosia maple is hard like normal maple wood, just has these really trippy looking "ghost" patterns through it.
Interesting. BUT. I would have rathered seen the making of the cabinet. 👍
Pmsl 🤣 this is up same day Colin from woodworking web posted a video on creating spalted wood at home. Are you two secretly working together 🧐 lol
Great work guys. Keep it up.
Yes, I saw that one earlier today as well! Maybe spalted wood is the next hot youtube thing 😃
I didn't see his video, but sometimes that happens. I am sure our two videos will give you a lot of good information together :)
@@StumpyNubs not as much as if you two were to do a collaborative video or series, lol. Now that would be good.
@@StumpyNubs It's a conspiracy! 😂🤣 But, yes, always lots of great information 😊
If youre looking for spalted wood, check your firewood supplier.
I found some beautiful spalted beech in my firewood so I asked if I could dig through their pile and they even let me take it for free.
I will go there again and bring some things I made with it on the lathe as thank you gifts.
Good idea on the gifts, but the wood may not be free next time once they see the "diamond in the rough"
@@Sturmcrow1 As long as it's not too expensive I'll gladly pay.
Seeing as online it can cost 20€ for a much smaller piece than I'm getting, I feel kinda bad taking any more for free.
No mention of cactus juice or other stabilizers for softer, punkier pieces? CA glue works, but it doesn't take a stain and will stick out like a sore thumb when you coat it..
I can't imagine why you would stain spalted wood. Even so, while I didn't mention any specific product names (this isn't a tutorial about hardeners) I did refer to chemical hardeners.
@@StumpyNubs I meant more of a coating than a stain, but still a light stain can be complimentary. Even BLO will show where CA is since it will wipe right off and not color that area.
Stumpy Nubs' cousin, Punky Fibers
Spalted maple saw dust can be hazardous as it contains fungus spores.
I am allergic to many molds and some fungi, yet I have never had a reaction when working spalted wood. Granted, I take reasonable precautions with any woodworking, including turning on the dust collector while cutting and wearing a mask if I do a lot of sanding. Different woods (and fungi) affect people differently. As a general safety rule, a dust mask should be worn whenever you make a lot of dust, no matter what wood you work with.
Add carpenter ants and it really gets interesting.
I would offer the suggestion that you consider adding a couple of seconds (perhaps with your logo), to the start of your videos. Most of the time I have to stop the video and back up because you launch into the material at the instant the video starts. When I am switching from the mobile device to my TV there will be several seconds delay until the video loads, and it is difficult to slide the progress pointer back all the way to zero.
Relating to the video today, you did not caution woodworkers to take extra precautions when milling spalted wood to minimize exposure to possibly toxic mold ESPECIALLY during sanding operations.
Thanks!
We used to have an intro and people complained about it. As for the dust, I am allergic to many molds and some fungi, yet I have never had a reaction when working spalted wood. Granted, I take reasonable precautions with any woodworking, including turning on the dust collector while cutting and wearing a mask if I do a lot of sanding.
Thanks for this information. I haven't used any spalted material yet. Not sure I ever will. Personally, I find it quite ugly. Perhaps I'm an old fuddy-duddy who is too much of a traditionalist. Take care.
What's the difference between ambrosia and spalted maple?
ambrosia maple contains patches of discoloration around the holes burrowed by an insect. The appearance is quite different.
We laid a floor with Ambrosia Maple, looks amazing! But spalted is quite different.
I know where there is at least 1000 bf of spalted maple...and will probably never get used 😥
Thin on technical challenge solutions, today.
I'm not a fan of spalted wood, but to each their own.
Breathing in dust loaded with fungus is unhealthy, don't you think?
I think breathing in pretty much any wood dust is unhealthy, especially if you have allergies.
One thing you didn't mention is taking EXTRA care with breathing protection when working spalted wood. That stuff can cause serious lung damage.
so I should stop eating it?
"Serious lung damage?" It's fungus, not anthrax. If you have a severe allergy to fungi, you may be in trouble. But most people aren't going to have a severe reaction unless they are inhaling a lot of sanding dust. But I would consider that a bad idea with any type of wood. Bottom line, use dust collection when cutting and a dust mask when sanding just as you normally (hopefully) should.
One of the first pieces I turned on my lathe last year was salted maple. Just so happens half my maple tree is dead and very well splated
How about the health hazards associated with this? What happens with exposure to your lungs, eyes, or mucous membranes? How do you safely work with these colonies?
Just wear a mask.
You should do that any time you create dust (not just from spalted wood, always).
Many things are bad for your lungs and some wood dust can cause cancer or allergies.
Also, Hi FrostyDave, I'm Dave, why U so frosty? :D
My buddy picked some spalted up from a guy that had temperary blindness from just handling the wood and rubbing his eye. Clearly there is more danger than just wear a mask. How about if the wood isn't sealed, what is my liability if a customer goes blind? I think a follow up video is needed for those that have no clue on PPE. I understand the danger but I'm sure many people will just jump in without thinking thanks to this video.
If you have a severe allergy to fungi, you should consider taking extra precautions. But most people aren't going to have a severe reaction unless they are inhaling a lot of sanding dust. But I would consider that a bad idea with any type of wood. Bottom line, use dust collection when cutting and a dust mask when sanding just as you normally (hopefully) should.
You never answered the title question, is spalted wood dangerous?
Sure I did