Spalted Maple

[wickford]

I received a piece of spalted maple from a friend and I just got around to cutting a blank out of it. I cut the blank, and drilled it and glued in the tubes, and figured I'd cover it with thin CA to hopefully help it turn better. So here's the question...When I coated it with the CA, I saw some puffs of smoke coming from the wood. Is this normal? Seems like some sort of chemical reaction, but I've never seen this before. I was wearing a respirator, so I wasn't worried about inhaling it, but I'm curious as to what it was, and what caused it...

Any thoughts/ideas??

Thanks!

 

[kent4Him]

Most likely the CA curing. Cellulose works as an accelerant.

 

[Sfolivier]

Yes it's normal. Cellulose accelerate CA glue curing and spalted wood is so porous that it offers a very large surface area for the CA to react with cellulose. This results in an very fast curing reaction that generates a lot of heat.

 

[rherrell]

Same thing happens to paper towels if you use them for applying a CA finish. Fingers too![:0]

 

[TellicoTurning]

I have some cross cut spalted maple that I soaked in thin CA... got same puffs of smoke and could smell the vapors from the CA curing..

 

[JohnU]

It also happens if you drop ca on a dry cloth.

 

[OldWrangler]

Or it could be smoke signals from very small Indians living in the wood telling you not to pour that poisonous crap on their happy hunting grounds. ....and then maybe not.