One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

Re: One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

Mike Schwing from Maryland

>Neat! Thats one of the best yet.

Re: One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

Jim Shaver - Oakville, Ontario

>Hi Tom,

A very nice pen, looks great!

take care,

Jim

Re: One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

Eaglesc

>Excellent!

I am going to ask this as a serious question so please don't laugh.

At what point does wood turn from spalted to rotted or doesn't that enter into the equation?

Re: One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

RonZ

>I like this one a lot!

BTW, it's PITA as in the flat bread. Which of course can be read Pain In The A..

Re: One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

Larry G.

>Hi Eagle;

There is a transition from spalted to rotted. Some of the pens I have turned have areas that have crossed the line.

Liberal use of CA and sharp tools "may" get a nice pen.

Spalted maple is my favorite wood to turn.

Larry

Hand Turned Pens at http://webpages.charter.net/lgottlieb2/

Re: One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

Russ

>"Spalted" is when the wood can still be held in the lathe and turned. "Rotten" is when it can't, and there is nothing we can do to change it.

Re: One Last Spalted Red Oak Experiment

Guest

>Spalting IS a part of the rotting or wood decay process. It's one visual sign of that process although spalting may not be present in all rotted wood. In a very general sense, there is white rot (spalting being a part of that group) and there is brown rot.

The point at which a person would call a piece "spalted" and that point calling it "rotten" is all in the eye of the beholder. Some turners see any piece of wood with any kind of decay as being rotten and unusable. Others use pretty much anything and wouldn't consider it rotten unless it's almost soupy.

It's all a matter of what you want to use and how much preparation (stabilizing, impregnating, plasticizing, etc.) you want to take to get the piece workable.