Stabilized Spalted Dogwood

[Wmcullen]

I was saving this spaltered dogwood blank from MRDucks2 and added a rosewood center band.
Thanks for looking
- Cullen

 

[RichAldrich]

Looks good!

 

[MRDucks2]

Quite Nice! I am pretty certain that will be my favorite pen this week. The band goes well and you were able to maintain the pinks in the dogwood very nicely.

 

[mark james]

LOvely!

 

[Alan Morrison]

Very good pen, Cullen. I like your centre band, it suits the pen very well.

Alan

 

[Bats]

Nice pen - especially the band. Is that rosewood one piece or two?

On the dogwood, I've got some maple that looks very similar, and I've always wondered whether it's considered appropriate to call it "spalted" when it's lacking the traditional black zone lines (or, if not, what it would be called... "fungal maple" doesn't really have a great ring to it).

 

[Wmcullen]

Nice pen - especially the band. Is that rosewood one piece or two?

On the dogwood, I've got some maple that looks very similar, and I've always wondered whether it's considered appropriate to call it "spalted" when it's lacking the traditional black zone lines (or, if not, what it would be called... "fungal maple" doesn't really have a great ring to it).

Rosewood band is one piece but carved with a strong crease to look like two. I'll defer to MRDucks2 to respond on the spalted nomenclature.

 

[MRDucks2]

For the most part, if the discoloration is due to fungus combined with the rot it is considered spalted. Different woods spalt in different ways. If you look at the pen, you will notice some of the dark lines you see in other spalted woods, just not as prevalent.

Some maples and oaks give beautiful black line patterns along with the discolored areas. Dogwood gives pink to maroon colored discoloration that is hard to come by in other woods.

The problem I found with Dogwood is as soon as a finish hits it, it the red toned areas turn a nice walnut brown. Stabilizing helps preserve the original color.

 

[Bats]

For the most part, if the discoloration is due to fungus combined with the rot it is considered spalted. Different woods spalt in different ways. If you look at the pen, you will notice some of the dark lines you see in other spalted woods, just not as prevalent.

I don't see much in the way of dark lines on the pen, but I do see a lot of more subtle lighter/darker patches, which is what I'm mostly seeing on this maple (it does have the occasional dark lines towards the ends on some pieces, but they're few and far between). It gives the wood a lot of character (both the maple and the dogwood), but without the prevalent zone lines I've never been sure what to refer to it as. On some pieces it comes out looking almost like antler.

These are some craft knife handles I made from some of it (stabilized) last month:

 

[MRDucks2]

Don't forget that you can achieve patterning in maple from the work of the ambrosia beetle, also. Which is the combination of the bug and fungus as I understand. Not sure if that same phenomena applies to any other woods or not.

 

[Bats]

Don't forget that you can achieve patterning in maple from the work of the ambrosia beetle, also. Which is the combination of the bug and fungus as I understand. Not sure if that same phenomena applies to any other woods or not.

Heh. I was almost going to mention that the dogwood (the maple, not so much) had vaguely ambrosia-ish patterning, but I was afraid that would just confuse the issue.

 

[Kcimdrib]

What a fantastic Pen and wood combination I like it a lot.