islandturner
Member
A buddy gave me a piece of maple out of his firewood pile – it was cut out of a branch maybe 6" in diameter. He thought he could see some spidery spalting on one of the cuts. After cutting away the edges on the band saw, it was obvious that it was heavily spalted along one side.
This blank was a bit punky so rounded it, drilled it out about a 1/16" less than the tube sizes, and stabilized it for a few days in Minwax wood hardener. It caused the spalting at the surface to spread like wet ink and I thought I'd ruined it. But after drying, it was like working with a PR blank, and the spalting was nice and tight. There is some nice chatoyance going on, too (doesn't show in the photos)
Managed to get three blanks like the one used with the Cigar kit below.
This blank was a bit punky so rounded it, drilled it out about a 1/16" less than the tube sizes, and stabilized it for a few days in Minwax wood hardener. It caused the spalting at the surface to spread like wet ink and I thought I'd ruined it. But after drying, it was like working with a PR blank, and the spalting was nice and tight. There is some nice chatoyance going on, too (doesn't show in the photos)
Managed to get three blanks like the one used with the Cigar kit below.
