Swamp Maple Tree Hit by lighting last night

[Nick Valenza]

A co-worker of mine had a swamp maple tree hit by lightning last night. He offered to let me have the trunk/larger branches. It had three main trunks split a few feet off the ground. Two of them split and fell to the ground. No damage, none hurt. I read in a book recently that the proper way to handle the trunk it to get it to your house in larger sections, and cut it up as you need it. Previously I just anchor sealed logs that I cut up, or had cut up on site, and loaded them by myself into the truck. After a year or so, the 20" cherry logs were checking to the point where I don't think I could use them as bowls anymore. So the idea was to bring a few of these trunks home on my 2005 Dodge 2500 Standard Cab. I want to keep them off the ground, but am looking for different jig ideas on how to do it. hold them above the ground. Do I just put down some pressure-treated wood? I would like to keep them above the ground so that when I need to cut off a section for use, the chainsaw will not dig into the ground. I was gonna use Anchorseal and then 20" wide plastic wrap around the end with elastic straps to hold the plastic wrap on the ends. This should hopefully slow down the checking way more.

But before I do any of that, I have never turned swamp maple, I know it is soft maple. Can anyone tell me what to expect from the swamp maple bolts that will be sitting in my yard? I know it will not have much figure unless there is spalting or curling... I will probably be using it with colored embellishments.

I am looking for any advice you can give me on this adventure! Thanks, everyone!

 

[robo hippy]

Well, I have never heard of swamp maple. Looking at the picture, given the lighter color of the underside of the leaves, it makes me think silver maple. They tend to have a shaggy type bark rather than the raised ridge types like oak have. They grow very big, very fast, and then fall apart. It can have very nice color. As for storage, I like to put a heavy duty tarp on the ground, preferably in a shade spot, put the wood on that, then another tarp on top. Ideal is to get the whole log delivered and then cut off chunks as you need them. Since you are cutting it up yourself, then cut into pieces you can load, then move to your storage area. I have found that wood glue, Elmers or Titebond, work better than the Anchorseal. You may try standing a piece or three on end in the dirt so they can spalt. That takes 6 or more months, but after a year, it can be too rotten to turn. Maple does degrade fairly quickly because it has a lot of sugar in the sap, and all those little things that like to turn wood into compost love it. I would turn it as fast as you can. The colors also dull fairly quickly.

robo hippy

 

[Pat Patterson]

I am currently doing the same with a large cedar tree a buddy dropped in my driveway. Hope it works for both of us. The one thing I would do is cur out the crotch section and split it and seal it. Probably make the nicest 2 bowls from the whole tree.
Pat

 

[Aaron Harris]

My neighbor the arborist delivered us a flame box elder trunk, which we had him put on cinderblocks. Seems to work for now. I just have to cut the good stuff away from that rotted center pith section.

 

[William Rogers]

A co-worker of mine had a swamp maple tree hit by lightning last night. He offered to let me have the trunk/larger branches. It had three main trunks split a few feet off the ground. Two of them split and fell to the ground. No damage, none hurt. I read in a book recently that the proper way to handle the trunk it to get it to your house in larger sections, and cut it up as you need it. Previously I just anchor sealed logs that i cut up, or had cut up on site, and loaded them by myself into truck. After a year or so, the 20" cherry logs were checking to the point where I don't think i could use them as bowls anymore. So the idea was to bring a few of these trunk home on my 2005 Dodge 2500 Standard Cab. I want to keep them off the ground, but am looking for different jig ideas on how to do it. hold them above the ground. Do i just put down some pressure treated wood? i would like to keep them above the ground, so when I need to cut off a section for use, the chainsaw will not dig into the ground. I was gonna use anchor seal 1, and then 20" wide plastic wrap around the end with elastic straps to hold the plastic wrap on the ends. This should hopefully slow down the checking way more.

But before I do any of that, I have never turned swamp maple, i know it is a soft maple. Can anyone tell me what to expect from the swamp maple bolts that will be sitting in my yard? I know it will not be very figurey unless there is spalting or curling... i will probably be using it will colored embellishments.

I am looking for any advise you can give me on this adventure! Thanks everyone!

I will never turn another piece if I knowthe tree was hit by lightening. Some walnut was given to me that I did not know was struck by lightening at some point. I did see some strange “figure” in it. Turning an urn the walnut just split and ended up bending my tool rest.

 

[Mike Brazeau]

My Trees of Canada book lists the Swamp Maple also as Soft Maple and Red Maple. If I enlarge the photo on my iPad, even though blurry, leaves look like the Red Maple leaves. Leaves not as indented as Silver Maple. Wood has a brown tone to It. Silver Maple darkens quickly after cutting. Not sure about Red Maple. Bet it would look good with a Danish Oil finish. I would rough turn some of the best of it ASAP and let it dry down. The book also says Rays scarcely visible on a tangential face.

 

[hockenbery]

Can anyone tell me what to expect from the swamp maple bolts that will be sitting in my yard? I know it will not be very figurey unless there is spalting or curling... i will probably be using it will colored embellishments.

Whenever I get new wood I want to learn about- I turn a NE bowl.
Takes about 20 minutes I get a good look at the grain.
Learn how it shear-scrapes etc.

Soft Maples are prone getting black spots from iron contact. Black finger prints from handling after Using the grinder.
Lemon juice takes it out.

Often the softmaples will have some curl near the roots - the part below where the one trunk broke
Soft maples also get ambrosia beetles.

Feibings Usmc black leather dye works great on the soft maples.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I want to keep them off the ground, but am looking for different jig ideas on how to do it. hold them above the ground. Do i just put down some pressure-treated wood? I would like to keep them above the ground so that when I need to cut off a section for use, the chainsaw will not dig into the ground. I was gonna use anchor seal 1, and then 20" wide plastic wrap around the end with elastic straps to hold the plastic wrap on the ends. This should hopefully slow down the checking way more.

But before I do any of that, I have never turned swamp maple, I know it is soft maple. Can anyone tell me what to expect from the swamp maple bolts that will be sitting in my yard? I know it will not be very figured unless there is spalting or curling... I will probably be using it with colored embellishments.

I agree with Wiliam Rogers because of the hidden damage to a tree caused by lightning. You might get lucky, but it might possibly not be worth turning depending on the severity of the strike. Applying Anchorseal is a good idea, but most definitely do not apply plastic wrap over the Anchorseal. The purpose of Anchorseal is to allow the slow release of moisture so that the wood can dry without splitting. Applying plastic wrap, with or without Anchorseal would completely block the release of moisture resulting in black mold discoloring the wood.

Store the wood in a shady spot that is out of the weather. Indoors would be ideal if you have an airconditioned shop or garage.

 

[robo hippy]

I guess lightning struck trees would be like storm downed trees. If a tree blows down in a storm, and the root ball is still attached, I would expect it to be pretty safe. If a storm downed tree is broken anywhere along the trunk, I would decline, unless I wanted a lot of spindle blanks. Some may work, some may not....

robo hippy

 

[Nick Valenza]

Well, I have never heard of swamp maple. Looking at the picture, given the lighter color of the underside of the leaves, it makes me think silver maple. They tend to have a shaggy type bark rather than the raised ridge types like oak have. They grow very big, very fast, and then fall apart. It can have very nice color. As for storage, I like to put a heavy duty tarp on the ground, preferably in a shade spot, put the wood on that, then another tarp on top. Ideal is to get the whole log delivered and then cut off chunks as you need them. Since you are cutting it up yourself, then cut into pieces you can load, then move to your storage area. I have found that wood glue, Elmers or Titebond, work better than the Anchorseal. You may try standing a piece or three on end in the dirt so they can spalt. That takes 6 or more months, but after a year, it can be too rotten to turn. Maple does degrade fairly quickly because it has a lot of sugar in the sap, and all those little things that like to turn wood into compost love it. I would turn it as fast as you can. The colors also dull fairly quickly.

robo hippy

Thanks Robo!

 

[Richard Coers]

I second William's comments. When lightening strikes a tree, it boils out the lignin that holds the cells together. I consider it a serious safety issue to turn the wood. If you let it dry before turning, you'll see all the cracks. If you turn it green, you'll likely only see some of the cracks as you turn it. Be extremely careful!!!! This tree in my neighborhood was easy to let sit.

 

[Bill Boehme]

When I googled "swamp maple", all of the results said that was a colloquial name for red maple. Here is an ecerpt from Wikipedia:

Acer rubrum, the red maple, also known as swamp maple, water maple or soft maple, is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern and central North America.​

Here is a picture of a red maple leaf:




And, here is a picture of a silver maple leaf:

 

[Mark Jundanian]

So here's a (pointless) question what maple is the Canadian flag modeled on?

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

I second William's comments. When lightening strikes a tree, it boils out the lignin that holds the cells together. I consider it a serious safety issue to turn the wood. If you let it dry before turning, you'll see all the cracks. If you turn it green, you'll likely only see some of the cracks as you turn it. Be extremely careful!!!! This tree in my neighborhood was easy to let sit.

View attachment 45960

That's to bad it looks like it had some interesting color

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

About 6 years ago a white pine in the woods near me was hit by lightning and it blow the top off up about 25 feet from the ground so I cut the rest down, trimmed off the shattered end and cut two saw logs from the rest. The base of the tree was about 30" diameter so I figured I had some choice lumber but after milling it with the WoodMizer I found that the cracks and burns went all the way through the saw logs and most of what I got was useless.

 

[Kevin Weir]

So here's a (pointless) question what maple is the Canadian flag modeled on?

I’m going to guess sugar maple (hard maple). I hope I’m right, would be embarrassing to be wrong on this one!

 

[Dean Center]

Here are a couple of other thoughts, not yet mentioned.

It's summer, so the tree had a lot of water in it. Under normal circumstances, that would mean it's more likely to crack than the same wood harvested in Spring.

I haven't turned lightening struck wood, but I have turned wildfire killed trees. In that situation, the heat vaporized the water in the wood and it was instantly dried. (also charred and very messy to handle) Perhaps lightening would do the same, which would mean it would be less likely to crack.

Here in the Rocky Mountains, we have very low humidity and wood dries faster, increasing the chance of cracking. In the south, it's less likely. You'll need to assess ambient humidity in your area over the time you're considering letting the wood sit to judge the chance for you.

One way to markedly reduce the chance of cracking, would be to rough turn the wood, do your preferred 'slow the drying' strategy, and then finish turn later.

As others have said, the chance of internal disruption is present, so whack off a bowl blank and carefully see what you've got before you do all the work of hauling it home.

 

[William Rogers]

Here is a picture of the first piece I turned of the walnut. I turned this while wet and there were not any visible signs that there were cracks, just some strange figure maybe caused insect activity. Thinking it might crack I put CA on it. After drying the figure “opened” up. The piece that let loose and bent my tool rest was also wet and didn’t have near as much of this figure, but had more mass. At the time of turning I didn’t understand why this wood had such a unique figure. I finally realized it was struck by lightening at some point during it’s life. I guess you could call it nature’s fractal burning. I was fortunate that the larger second piece didn’t fully separate and hit me instead of catching on my tool rest. We have that desire to “save” wood, but some wood is better used as firewood.

 

[Nick Valenza]

My neighbor the arborist delivered us a flame box elder trunk, which we had him put on cinderblocks. Seems to work for now. I just have to cut the good stuff away from that rotted center pith section.

Thanks for idea here. It will probably be some cinderblocks.

 

[Nick Valenza]

I agree with Wiliam Rogers because of the hidden damage to a tree caused by lightning. You might get lucky, but it might possibly not be worth turning depending on the severity of the strike. Applying Anchorseal is a good idea, but most definitely do not apply plastic wrap over the Anchorseal. The purpose of Anchorseal is to allow the slow release of moisture so that the wood can dry without splitting. Applying plastic wrap, with or without Anchorseal would completely block the release of moisture resulting in black mold discoloring the wood.

Store the wood in a shady spot that is out of the weather. Indoors would be ideal if you have an airconditioned shop or garage.

Hey Bill, how deep would the black mold go?? Could I take off the plastcwrap in a year or so, and spray it down with Bleach? Killing the black mold? Bleach might penetrate myabe 1 inch into wood?

 

[Nick Valenza]

Here is a picture of the first piece I turned of the walnut. I turned this while wet and there were not any visible signs that there were cracks, just some strange figure maybe caused insect activity. Thinking it might crack I put CA on it. After drying the figure “opened” up. The piece that let loose and bent my tool rest was also wet and didn’t have near as much of this figure, but had more mass. At the time of turning I didn’t understand why this wood had such a unique figure. I finally realized it was struck by lightening at some point during it’s life. I guess you could call it nature’s fractal burning. I was fortunate that the larger second piece didn’t fully separate and hit me instead of catching on my tool rest. We have that desire to “save” wood, but some wood is better used as firewood.

View attachment 46015

Wow that is so interesting!!! Nice!

 

[Bill Boehme]

... Could I take off the plastic wrap in a year or so ...

You're just yanking my chain, right?

What you see on the surface is like seeing the tip of an iceberg. The mold goes all the way through the wood and bleach won't do anything to get rid of it. And, never ever use plastic wrap for more than two or three days! On the other hand, learning what not to do by trial and error is the type of learning that has the most significant impact on long-term retention.

 

[hockenbery]

Hey Bill, how deep would the black mold go?? Could I take off the plastcwrap in a year or so, and spray it down with Bleach? Killing the black mold? Bleach might penetrate myabe 1 inch into wood?

After a year the wood is likely to be decayed mush.

Bleach is a surface treatment. 1/16 inch or so.

Bleach probably won’t affect the black mold

I use plastic wrap for a day or two.

 

[Mike Brazeau]

So here's a (pointless) question what maple is the Canadian flag modeled on?

I did look it up and the Government of Canada site says it was a stylized Maple Leaf. Looks pretty much like Hard/Sugar Maple to me and there is lots of it here.

 

[Ric Williams]

A lightning strike causes the water in a tree to instantly flash to steam, which expands rapidly and tends to blow the tree apart, like in Richard Coers photo. Knowing that, I wouldn't trust the structural integrity of any trunk wood since the current is trying to get to ground. The severity of the strike may be mild enough to not cause the tree to explode, but could still cause enough damage to make it untrustworthy for turning. Better to play it safe. There will be other opportunities for more free wood.

 

[robo hippy]

The mold under the stretch film can vary a lot from tree to tree. I don't use it on maple. With all the sugar in it, it will mold, almost over night. I have kept madrone blanks for 6 months with no cracking, and that is an accomplishment. I have an apple blank that is over a year old. Most of the time, the plastic is off in a week or so because the bowls are dry. If it doesn't mold, the plastic can keep a piece from checking for 6 or so months, but not all the time. I just find it easier than the log sealers. I don't twice turn my bowls.

robo hippy