# Spalting Maple



## BassBlaster (Apr 4, 2012)

I just found out today that my brothers neighbor owns a tree service. My brother got to talking to him and he told him that he will give me all the wood I want. Apparently he just cuts it up and dumps it at local mulching places and such. I told him I would take any burl he comes across and various other woods. This brings me to my question.

He had a load of fresh maple that he just cut up today. Nothing spectacular, just your run of the mill plain ole maple. I had my brother grab me a few chunks of it so I could attempt to spalt it. The chunks are supposedly, 12" in diameter and 18" to 24" in length. What is the best way to go about spalting it? I have never tried to spalt anything so I dont even know where to begin. Any help is appreciated.


----------



## BassBlaster (Apr 4, 2012)

Thanks for the reply and the links!!

I'm thinking the stand it on end method sounds good to me. Theres a small wooded area of our property with a small creek bottom running through it. I think that will be a perfect place to keep them moist and shaded and the landlord wont come by and see em and think they are firewood!!

Useing this method, how does one know when they are ready?


----------



## BassBlaster (Apr 4, 2012)

Cool thanks for the tips.

Speaking of sweet gum, I just purchased a bunch of spalted sweet gum pen blanks and the spalt lines are orange rather than black. Really cool looking stuff. Cool enough, that I havnt taken a single order for a pen made of it yet but I ordered another box!!


----------



## Daren (Apr 5, 2012)

Joe Rebuild said:


> One does not Daren could probably answer better for your area as far as time goes.



The first answer is the best, mother nature sets the schedule, we just have to watch and wait.
Soft (silver or red) maple spalts faster than hard (sugar) maple. I have sugar maple I have been letting spalt for 2 years in ideal conditions (dedicated spalt pile already teaming with the right fungus from years of previous spalting)...not ready yet. Even soft maple I wouldn't expect anything dramatic in the year 2112 if you are looking for black line.



.


----------



## Daren (Apr 5, 2012)

SG spalts pretty fast up here too, a matter of months given the right conditions. Climate does play a role for sure. You gotta figure our logs are frozen at least 4 if not 5 months up north, the fungus is dormant. Then summer hits and it is dry and hot (not wet and hot like down there). Hot and dry makes for good air drying of lumber, I can get maple to 10% air drying from fresh sawn in 3 months.
We (central Illinois) went over 2 1/2 months without a rain in mid summer last year, hot and dry. I lost some logs to ''rot'' because the conditions were more favorable for dry rot than spalt.

.


----------



## Kevin (Apr 5, 2012)

A couple species that spalt easily are sycamore and hackberry, so if you're looking specifically to spalt wood, besides maple ask the tree guy to really keep an eye out for syc and hack. But you got to check on hack almost daily after a few eeks because the window between spalting and rotting closes very fast with hackberry. But if you get it right it sure is pretty because it spalts as well as anything (LOTS of lines). 

Spalted quartersawn sycamore is very pretty also - I haven't spalted any syc in quite a while. 


.


----------



## chippin-in (Apr 5, 2012)

Daren said:


> The first answer is the best, mother nature sets the schedule, we just have to watch and wait.
> Soft (silver or red) maple spalts faster than hard (sugar) maple. I have sugar maple I have been letting spalt for 2 years in ideal conditions (dedicated spalt pile already teaming with the right fungus from years of previous spalting)...not ready yet. Even soft maple I wouldn't expect anything dramatic in the year 2112 if you are looking for black line.
> 
> Daren, I hope you meant 2012 & not 2112.....lol


----------



## Kevin (Apr 5, 2012)

chippin-in said:


> Daren, I hope you meant 2012 & not 2112.....lol



Either one would be correct in this case.


----------



## Daren (Apr 5, 2012)

chippin-in said:


> Daren, I hope you meant 2012 & not 2112.....lol



 Yes I did mean *this* year...But I didn't catch the mistake when I previewed my post, never would have if you didn't bring it to my attention. (little secret, 2112 is my PIN/password on a few things so I am just used to typing it)


----------



## BassBlaster (Apr 5, 2012)

Thanks for all the tips guys. I'll put this stuff out and check every couple months. if it takes till next year, no big deal. If it gets lost due to rot or whatever, no big deal. This is stuff I was gonna pass on till I got the idea to try spalting so this is just for practice!!


----------

