# Sparkles in end grain - silica?



## Damienw (May 11, 2015)

Hi all, 
I was just wondering if others on here had ever had any wood with flecks that 'sparkled'? If so, what is it? Silica deposits? 

I got a small and very old log of purple or pink gidgee over the weekend with the final plan of resawing it into end grain/oyster veneers for a chest i've been gathering materials for. It came from a tree that'd died long before it was cut and all the bark and sapwood had rotted and been sand blasted away naturally over the years. 

After sanding one end down to a flat surface and buffing to 12,000 grit followed up with a couple coats of blonde shellac noticed that there seem to be tiny bright reddish sparkly spots embedded in the wood itself. 

Just to be sure it wasnt the finish or the sanding i scraped it back past the previous sanded surface to bare wood and gave it another coat of completely fresh shellac again with a new brush and again, the sparkles are still there just as before. 

The wood weighs about the same if not a little more than lignum vitae based on a comparison with a similarly sized squared up piece i have of it, though this seems to be slightly harder (at least based on how it felt sanding and scraping it)

Its extremely hard to get a photo that shows them properly (its a bit like trying to photograph chatoyance) 
The dusty looking small spots are the 'sparkles' in question


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## phinds (May 11, 2015)

Mark if you still have that next time we get together, I'll get you one of my close-ups that will show it better.

I've had silica grit that big but I can't remember whether or not it sparkled. I don't think it did but my memory's not what it used to be. In fact my memory never was what it used to be.


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