Spalted sweetgum cigar

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Gary Beasley

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Sep 18, 2009
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Marietta, Ga. USA
We had a sweetgum tree behind the campers parking pad that had died a while back and just got noticeable this summer. This weekend my son came over for a visit with his family and volunteered to help take it down. After a trip to HD for a long armed pruning saw to top the tree from the parking pad (which was 11 feet or more up) we roped it and pulled it down the hill.
On looking at the booty I saw the branches from the topped section was very spalted, dry and easy to cut. It got taken into the shop to the bandsaw then the tablesaw. Wow what a figure that wood has! We turned a few pens from it, this is one of the best - a cigar pen finished with CA.
I suspect the rest of the tree is going to have some pretty stuff in it. It'll wait a while though till it cools off and I'm rested from the holiday. My son and I were up til 1am last night playing with the penturning lathe.
 

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And to think of all the bad things I say about the gum trees around here. Just cut one down earlier this year and pushed the wood into the brush. I'm going to have to dig it out now and give a look for what might be hidden.

Well Done!

Duane
 
Beautiful pen!

Sweet gum trees around here are trash trees, the sawmills won't even cut them up into dimensional lumber, they just use them for oilfield mats if anything. Just goes to show you what a little bacterial infestation and time can make out of the plainest wood.

Speaking of, there is a whole pile of 2 foot trunk sections out back, grown over with honeysuckle. Hmmmm, I may have to dig one out and see what it looks like, after the fire ants all crawl off of it.
 
That's a very nice looking pen! :smile:
I would be curious to know how it reacts in the next few days/weeks.
Will the moisture content in the wood react with the CA? Will it crack? :eek:
I hope not, but you might want to wait on turning more of it until it's had a chance to dry a little. :smile:
 
Lenny said:
That's a very nice looking pen! :smile:
I would be curious to know how it reacts in the next few days/weeks.
Will the moisture content in the wood react with the CA? Will it crack? :eek:
I hope not, but you might want to wait on turning more of it until it's had a chance to dry a little. :smile:
Click to expand...

The first part I cut was from the top branches, and was quite dry and turned well. The next batch was lower down and the wood was damp so It's laid out drying. I expect the rest of the tree to be the same way. I sectioned the trunk and stacked it outside the basement door and the wood was spalted all the way to the ground level. I hope it looks as good as what I've cut already.
 
That is very beautiful wood. The spalting is very dark and shows off the contrasting wood nicely. Nice looking pens and the cigar shape is enhanced by the wood.
 
Tell you what, I think a lot of the color can be attribited to the ants nesting in the dead tree. They might have brought the fungus into the tree for a food source and thereby distributed it well and it seems they may have caused other colors with thier secretions. I've also found ant gallerys backfilled with sawdust that had to be hardened with CA and these were visually interesting as well. I've also filled a few open gallerys with thick CA to good effect. On top of that sweet gum has a twisty grain that has visual appeal too.
 
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