| SPALTING WOOD I have always been intrigued by spalted wood. It looks so outrageously beautiful, adding that striking pizzaz to your finest form. Keeping up with the poor man's way of doing things, I decided to spalt my own. I read a lot about methods of spalting your own wood. These included a recipe of mixing some beer and some other toxic ingredients and drowning the helpless wood into the brew; putting the log in a plastic bag; putting the log on wet dirt; and some others I've forgotten. After careful disregarding all these techniques, I just decided to bury the issue. Literally. I burried some nice birch logs I got into a two feet hole in my back yard and kept it buried for 4-9 months. Don't forget to water your treasurer you're growing. The two hardest parts of making your wood spalt is: 1) digging the hole and 2) trying to remember where you buried the darn wood. I pulled up my log, split it as usual, and voila--it was spalted!! I roughed out mating bowls from each split, and let them dry for a month or two. And here is what they looked like: I then made them into a coin- box per my usual method of gluing them together, then turning them as the pair that they had grown up to be. Some of the wood was really punky -- I mean punkier than Rod Stewart in his younger days. I'm just kidding folks. I have several of Rod's albums. So I eventually had to stop using the chisel and sand starting with 80 grit paper. This did the trick. But be careful as you can make a lopsided bowl as you sand away the soft grain easier than you do the harder grain. Here are some pictures of the finished coinbox: Nobody knows it's made of two pieces. So please don't tell on me. Those professional turners will have a fit about this one if they learn it's made this way. << Previous Page>> << Home Page>> << Next Page >> |
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