Another one saved!!!

[Paul.J]

Hi Bill.
You have gotta make a decision if you think the wood has gone too far or not,if it has then its not worth bothering with Bill.
I roughed my two pieces down to what i thought was decent wood,inside and out leaving a good 25mm wall thickness even though it was still punky in parts i was managing to get a decent finish from the tool which was sharpened again once i started getting into the finishing cuts.
Use the bowl gouge in a shear scraping position on the outer with as light a cut as you can get.
If you are getting a smooth-ish finish from the tool carry on all over then apply the sanding sealer so it soaks through to the inside or if there are bad patches add some thin CA glue.
Leave to dry till hard then sharpen the gouge again and shear scrape again.If you feel the wood is giving you a good finish carry on and possibly add a second coat of SS and work down to your required finish.
If neccessary use a rough abrasive such as 60 grit.As the wood is soft it soon cuts through then work through the other grades.
As i said above i took the top 2" off the second bowl as i just knew the spalting had gone too far so didn't even try to save it.
Once the wood starts spalting the process just carriies on and it doesn't take it long to go too far.So if you are spalting wood you must keep a close eye on it to get any use out of it.

 

[gregmcateer]

Once the wood starts spalting the process just carriies on and it doesn't take it long to go too far.So if you are spalting wood you must keep a close eye on it to get any use out of it.

Paul,
Does the spalting stop once it's dry? - Or do you need to do something else as well as drying, to stop the spalting?
TIA
Greg

 

[Paul.J]

This question was asked some time ago Greg and from what i can remember the answer was unclear,but i think once the item is finished and sealled with a finish then the spalting stops.I have splated pieces here that i turned some years ago and are still solid,in fact one of the very first pieces i turned was a very badly spalted piece of Beech and that is still fine today.
Obviously if its left outside to the elements then the decay is pretty rapid once it gets hold.
Once you see your logs spalting i'd suggest getting em into the dry to try and slow down the process which is what i think happened with the log i just turned,i think i caught it just in time to salvage summat from it.

 

[gregmcateer]

Great, thanks for that, Paul

 

[EnErY]

That was Very Informative Paul Thank You
Bill

 

[woodfarmer]

I Have a lot of spalted beech and am getting problems with it I not turned in months but the pieces in question gave me a lot of tear out and became very fibrous almost to the point where it resembled a coconut mat I tried filling the problem parts but on sanding back they developed in other parts of the bowl but the bowl I turned further down the log seemed much harder. Tried sanding sealer on them to harden them off but found that Ron seal seemed to be more effective but it did alter the colour of the timber.as for spalting timber other than it going through its natural course I was told that covering the blank in yogurt does help the spalting process along I have done this myself with results
Regards
Bill

You know that phrase "coconut mat" was exactly the same how I described to my wife whilst working on an old oak log that was left outside for some while. I found that the sharper the tool the better (as always) but it was an uphill struggle.

 

[Paul.J]

The other two halves of spalted Sycamore i had had gone too far so was binned.Shame as it looked like they had some nice spalting in em,but just wasn't worth the effort this time.

 

[cefn]

A beautiful, simple piece of work. I love the way you have highlighted the aboriginal cave painting depicting a kangaroo and a possum poking its head out from its tree. Other than the sanding sealer, what did you use to finally finish the bowl and does the spalting 'halt' once finished?

 

[Paul.J]

Thank you CEFN,glad you spotted the figures in the spalting :wink:
Re your question about spalting it was asked and answered above but here is a quote.

This question was asked some time ago Greg and from what i can remember the answer was unclear,but i think once the item is finished and sealled with a finish then the spalting stops.I have splated pieces here that i turned some years ago and are still solid,in fact one of the very first pieces i turned was a very badly spalted piece of Beech and that is still fine today.
Obviously if its left outside to the elements then the decay is pretty rapid once it gets hold.
Once you see your logs spalting i'd suggest getting em into the dry to try and slow down the process which is what i think happened with the log i just turned,i think i caught it just in time to salvage summat from it.