# Help drying spalted wood



## PeterD (Dec 12, 2009)

Hello. First, thanks for everyone here for turning me onto milling. I may not have posted anything but sure read a lot and have really been enjoying milling my own wood. 

I have a problem (most likely a first) that I think you can help with. I got around to milling some Pecan logs that had been on the ground for a little over a year. Once I started milling I found that they had spalted. Very pretty and very little of what I'd call punky wood. It's all very solid and quite nice. My question is now what? Can I air dry in the shop like I've been doing all along? Is there something special I need to do? 

Thanks.

Peter


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## fubar2 (Dec 12, 2009)

If that pattern runs the entire length of the board I'd say you've got some primo stuff there.


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## PeterD (Dec 12, 2009)

It does on all you see there. The slabs are just under 5 ft each and 8/4. Pretty lucky I think. Had these logs left over from taking a tree down in the yard for a remodel, stacked them on the side of the house and forgot them for a year. They are very pretty and that's why I'm a little nervous on the next step. Seems like I'd want to stop the fungal activity otherwise it will keep going. There aren't any kilns around here that I can find so I'm wondering if air drying will be fine. I've had success in the past drying but don't know if there is a solution that can be wiped on or what.


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## fubar2 (Dec 12, 2009)

I would get that pic sent to every major guitar maker in the world like right now.


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## BIG JAKE (Dec 12, 2009)

Wow-that's some gorgeous lumber Peter. Hang tight though and someone will be around to give you some advice. I'm guessing the colors may fade a little as it dries but I don't think you'll have to do anything special other than sticker it, stack it, and band it tight so it stays straight. I've no experience with spalted lumber but we'll see what info comes down the pike with regard to your question. Fantastic wood though!


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## sleddude5 (Dec 12, 2009)

Incredible looking wood. Post more pics please!

I've had luck drying spalted maple using the sticker/stack method. You should be fine too.

Jerry C


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## mtngun (Dec 12, 2009)

PeterD said:


> Can I air dry in the shop like I've been doing all along? Is there something special I need to do?


Air drying works fine in my part of the country. Unless you have so much humidity in SC that mold develops on the boards, I think air drying in your shop will be great.

Can't tell from the pic but I hope you have sealer on the ends of those boards ? 

Awesome wood.


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## ROOTSXROCKS (Dec 12, 2009)

Air drying worked very good for me on spaulted wood, those are some fantastic boards, I am jealous


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## PeterD (Dec 12, 2009)

Thanks all. Yes, the ends are sealed, though not in that picture. I do think that the SC humidity helped this along. It was pretty wet this summer and humid: fertile for the fungus. Also, Pecan may be more susceptible to this sort of thing, I don't know. The tree was healthy when it came down, just in a bad place for a small add-on. 

I really appreciate all your input and advice. I really enjoy all the knowledge on this site. Just gonna do what I have been and seal, sticker, stack and forget for awhile (if I can; already thinking what I will use it for). Milling has become a big part of my woodworking and has opened a lot more doors. Here in SC there's not a lot of woodworkers and not a lot of sources for milled lumber. For a Pacific Northwest x-pat it was a shocker. The guys at the city green dump now call me when something nice shows up. Better than grinding for mulch.

-Peter


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## fubar2 (Dec 13, 2009)

My guess was you lived in a nuke waste dump or bottom of a coal mine. That orange color really sets that wood off.


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## billstuewe (Dec 13, 2009)

Sticker-stack it and weight it down and you should be just fine. It is my experience that spalted pecan seems to dry flatter and faster than fresh pecan. My theory is that the grain stresses are somewhat relieved in the spalting process.

Please do show some more pics--what you show in those pictures is stunning!!! This is my best so far:






This is a crouch that I let set in my yard for 2 1/2 years befor slabbing this spring. It is fair but does not have the charactor yours does.


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## carvinmark (Dec 13, 2009)

Love it!!! Can you post some full length pics?


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## PeterD (Dec 13, 2009)

Went out to the shop this morning and pulled the first 4 off the stack. As noted, the color is fading as you can see where it has already started drying but it will come back some when finished. The first pic is with phone camera under Fluorescents so it looks a little hot, though the color really is vivid. The second is as milled.

They're 56" long and 16"+ inches wide. Technique is still coming, but hey, I'm a woodworker... I've got a great plane!


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## discounthunter (Dec 13, 2009)

man that is some awesome spalt. the only thing i would stress is dry it away from the elements,no direct sunlight or rain,ect. otherwise stack and sticker like any other wood.


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## DRB (Dec 13, 2009)

As my signature says some spalted wood is cool.

Air dry with sticker should be fine as long as it does not get to moldy. I have done some birch that way and it turned out fine although not that beautiful.

Nice wood. What are you going to make?


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## BlueRider (Dec 13, 2009)

I would NOT sticker the slabs, Particularly if you live in a humid area. Spalting as we all know is caused by fungus. fungus needs moisture to live/spread. in the absence of moisture it will go dormant. If you sticker the slabs you run the risk of allowing enough moisture undeer the stickers to allow the fungus to sperad enough that it will cause sticker marks to read through the entire slab.

So how do you cure wood without stickering you ask. lay some stickers parallel to a wall and place the slabs standing on end and aranged like books in a book case with a small spacer at the top of each slab to space it from the one next to it. You want to keep the boards as close to vertical as possible but angled enough to be safe. I use "L" shaped blocks of wood as spacers that way one leg of the "L" will sit on the end of the slab so it cant fall to the ground.

This may sound like an odd way to store wood but I have had great results and it is also how the Nakashima foundaion stores all their slabs.


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## carvinmark (Dec 14, 2009)

BlueRider said:


> I would NOT sticker the slabs, Particularly if you live in a humid area. Spalting as we all know is caused by fungus. fungus needs moisture to live/spread. in the absence of moisture it will go dormant. If you sticker the slabs you run the risk of allowing enough moisture undeer the stickers to allow the fungus to sperad enough that it will cause sticker marks to read through the entire slab.
> 
> So how do you cure wood without stickering you ask. lay some stickers parallel to a wall and place the slabs standing on end and aranged like books in a book case with a small spacer at the top of each slab to space it from the one next to it. You want to keep the boards as close to vertical as possible but angled enough to be safe. I use "L" shaped blocks of wood as spacers that way one leg of the "L" will sit on the end of the slab so it cant fall to the ground.
> 
> This may sound like an odd way to store wood but I have had great results and it is also how the Nakashima foundaion stores all their slabs.



I never did it that way but it sure sounds like a good idea. I hate it when the stickers leave deep stains.


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## danieltree (Dec 14, 2009)

I was also told to stack vertical by a guy that used to run a kiln for exotic wood, he said stack it like a T P and it would not mold and dry faster.​


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## PeterD (Dec 14, 2009)

“…risk of allowing enough moisture under the stickers to allow the fungus to spread enough that it will cause sticker marks to read through the entire slab.”

This makes a lot of sense. The fact that it is spalted, we already know there is a high level of fungus activity. To mitigate this possibility I do use many year old, dry stickers that I’ve use for woodworking; way before I started my hand at milling. But…that doesn’t eliminate risk of the dry stickers holding on to the moisture long enough for active fungal activity to do something weird. In best case scenarios, it’s not enough perhaps for fungus to start, but that’s not the case here. 

Unfortunately my shop space isn’t good for vertical stacking for a long time. Horizontal gives me more freedom away from walls and I have a small area that I use out of the way for drying logs inside. Also, I did have bad luck before with Pecan if it wasn’t strapped. I now put a couple of straps around it and have no problems. I know there could be many reasons for this, but strapping was an easy solution.

So if the base problem is moisture transference to the sticker, what about eliminating the wood-wood contact? I could put a layer of strapping tape on the stickers. We’re not talking a lot here, maybe 30 minutes of work to unstack, tape and stack pack up. No wood-wood contact and I can still store horizontally and strapped. Does this sound reasonable?

Great conversation all. I really appreciate this dialog.


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## carvinmark (Dec 14, 2009)

I'm sure that would be better but anything on the surface for that long should cause less than expected results, even if it's not wood to wood.


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## Brmorgan (Dec 14, 2009)

That's some amazing wood there. Pecan seems to be pretty popular when I see stuff made out of spalted wood, so it must be a bit more prone to spalting than a lot of other species. Birch and Maple can be good too, but Birch especially starts rotting so fast that it's a fine line between no character and no fiber integrity.

I've never thought of stacking lumber vertically like that before. Sounds like a good idea, but my only concern is that you can't use gravity and extra weight to hold the pieces straight as they dry. To those who have done this, how was it for warping?


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## ROOTSXROCKS (Dec 14, 2009)

Across the street in an empty lot next to my neighbor, there is an laurel Oak that was hit by lightning last spring its about 20 inch caliper nice straight main bole about 24 foot.
It died but didn't split or burst, so I notice the city has flagged it for removal, and since Im planning a visit to the saww mill with csome cherry I have, Ihad a look at it to see if it would be worth milling. 
well in looking at how I could drop it in the right spot today, I look and see it has significant outward signs of fungus and spaulting. Still very strong, in fact its still holding its leaves from spring when it died. 

but the borrers have jumped on it I see sawdust all arround the base. 

it should be some really pretty wood, Im guessing it was cooked allowing the cell walls to release there moisture and sugars to pathogens, Ill post pics when I cut it open.


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## Brmorgan (Dec 14, 2009)

Looking forward to that. One thing that's nice about spalted wood is that grub and pinworm holes don't look as out of place as they do on a nice clear piece. I wouldn't worry too much about it.


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## Dai Sensei (Dec 24, 2009)

All I can say is that the spalting is amazing :jawdrop:

Not sure what you have planned for them, but they would make fantastic wood turning blanks and many would pay a pretty penny


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## sachsmo (Dec 24, 2009)

*What is "spalting"?*

I gather it is the start of decoposition.


I noodled some long dead standing Sycamore rounds, the grain and colors were amazing.

Wish I had not bucked that trunk up last Winter, could have been my first milling project.





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Nothing like that Pecan, but pretty enough to tell me I need an Alaskan to open up some other stuff laying around.

For my whole life I despised crotched and gnarly stuff.

Who knew the beauty beneath the surface.

I think this milling bug just bit me (hard).

Merry Christmas! Mo


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