When is it punky, rotten or firewood?

[4mikee]

In the last year and a half, I’ve had the opportunity to collect an enormous amount of green wood. It has ranged from maple, hackberry, cherry, poplar, cottonwood, hickory, pecan and who knows what else. My problem is that during the last six months most of it has suffered some degree of decay (or I think it has). Currently I have logs of beautiful spalted maple and hackberry that when turned have the most terrible raised grain on the end grain portions only. This is some beautiful stuff and man do I hate to burn it. Is there a way to salvage this material? It is not rotten by any means. The grain raises like crazy on the maple and hackberry. The cherry and walnut have rotting sapwood and the heartwood seems to be o.k. Cut it on a bandsaw and it looks almost planed. I know some of you folks have encountered this. I’ll post photos if it will help.
Thanks,
Mike L.

 

[odie]

Yes, I'd like to see some photos of the raised grain.....and whatever else you think helps.

What are your seasoning procedures for this wood? I assume you are rough turning, sealing and drying, then final turning and sanding....?

If your inventory of wood is not storing well, you may want to cut it all up into turning blocks and seal the end grain, before it all goes bad.

....odie

 

[Brian Hahn]

I've often gotten the fuzzies when green turning the softer hardwoods - aspen, cottonwood, box elder, silver maple, butternut, etc. Once the wood is dry it usually cuts cleanly.

Tear-out from punky wood is a different story. Then it depends on how much time and effort you want to put into saving the piece. But it doesn't sound like that is your problem.

It's normal for the sap wood to decay first while the heart wood is still in excellent condition. I've turned red oak from trees that have been laying in the woods for years - the sapwood was punk and the heart wood was just as hard as ever.

So, it sounds like you still have a good stash of wood for turning.

 

[Marc Himes]

Try sanding sealer

Mike I have had the same problem recently on some box elder. The pieces were rough turned last july and dried fairly quickly. I noted considerable tear out as I was rough turning them and again when they were dry. I applied a liberal amount of sanding sealer diluted with mineral spirits and was able to minimize the problem so they could be finished. These pieces had enough red pigment in them that I wanted to save them and while they still had some areas of tear-out, they were usable, but ended up with a pitted texture. The sap wood really took up alot of the sealer compared to the heart wood which led to some distortion in the shape so I will do this in stages next time.
Good luck. It sound like you have some very nice wood.

 

[seafoam]

I use acrylic floor polish to harden slightly punky wood. It makes it hard enough to turn, but take care because it will still sand to a flat spot very easily. It won't do a lot to give the punky wood much strength, so thin walled bowls are probably not a good idea. I use it mainly for bottle stoppers and weedpots where strength comes from bulk rather than material properties.

It's hard to define what is saveable, but if you can easily stick a scrwedriver in it and pull wood fibers out, it is probably too far gone to be worth messing with. Sounds to me like yours isn't that bad.

 

[MichaelMouse]

Good explanation here, along with a whole raft of stuff at the main site www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/producing_spalted_wood.pdf of the brown/white rot difference. When you get to the stage that you have cubical rot, it'll take major reinforcements to hold things together. The cubes crumble out real easily, and if you have the white rot residue visible in conjunction, it's firewood or compost. Pretty much anything you do to reinforce will change the finishing characteristics of that area, so choose your method of reinforcement according to the final finish.

Think I've posted this before, but I consider this beyond useable, even if it were dry. The handful of mush was scooped with a finger and squashed in my palm. Get your stash off the ground, onto pallets. If the bark's intact, you may only have rotten ends. Plus some down where gravity helped the water.

 

[4mikee]

My stash is nothing like the photo. There could be an occassional spot where it was on the ground but I can cut it off, other than that it's much like the other descriptions. I took some photos of the exterior without anything to fortify the fibers. I used dilluted sanding sealer with some improvement. Most of the back breaking work has been done so I hate to get rid of something that's usable. Of course I don't want to waste more time on material others would discard.
Thanks, I'll post the photos tonight.
Mike

 

[4mikee]

Photos...finally

I finally figured out how to resize the photos. One shows the blank before putting much effort into the cut. The other after following the bevel more and trying to prevent as much grain raising. Thanks for the help. It's hard not to turn the stuff it's got a lot of character.
Mike

 

[John Nicholas]

What Next

Now try a Sanding Sealer. Then resharpen you gouge and take another cut or two.

Then try a shear scrape.

John

 

[MichaelMouse]

I finally figured out how to resize the photos. One shows the blank before putting much effort into the cut. The other after following the bevel more and trying to prevent as much grain raising. Thanks for the help. It's hard not to turn the stuff it's got a lot of character.
Mike

Yep, getting a steady reference for the tool will help a lot. That's what the bevel will do for you. As stnick mentions, high-angle, thin shaving is one road, the other is low-angle, long bevel cutting. Both want a firm toolrest reference as the sine qua non of cutting, however. If your wood is still wet, I wouldn't worry. It'll get firmer as it dries, so you won't be as likely to crush and peck out soft material. That's where stiffening with a resin of some sort or the old 50/50 PVA will help. It sticks things back together by replacing the lignin eaten by the fungus. Remember, the stiffening is superficial at best, and a second pass almost assuredly will be more difficult to get a clean result than the first, so if you have to take it, stiffen the second layer.

You'll want to be especially careful about sanding this stuff as well, since it will abrade faster than sound wood. I use a tool referenced on the rest and let the wood come past to preserve a fair surface. It works better for me than stiffening and trying to reference the sander to the surface. Less buildup on the paper, too.

 

[4mikee]

I've used some 50/50 mixes and it does help, I'll also watch the tool angle. The interior is the real pill to sand. Does the 50/50 help with sanding or does it clog the paper? Also, I'm left with some very small pits on the exterior after sanding. Since I do sell some pieces what are the thoughts about those small pits on pieces like this.
Thanks

 

[MichaelMouse]

The PVA will get sticky and flow with heat, so the safest answer is yes, it will contribute to clogging, leading to more heat, and so forth. Keep the pressure light, which you want to do to avoid digging anyway, and let the wood come to the sander. Stearated paper will certainly help. You'll still have to clean it up a few times, though. One of the penalties for the benefit gained.

If you play it right, you can get almost all the glue-soaked material off the surface with the gouge before you start sanding. A wipe with a damp rag and vinegar will soften the stuff on your tools enough to get it clean. Never tried it on the wood, but it shouldn't hurt.

I don't go to full-contact until down in the 320 grit when I'm dealing with spalted soft areas, and even then I'm likely to stick with my power-loc disk, though it's not stearated, simply because I can support my sanding mandrel and let the wood come to me with better effect than I can with the softer velcro-backers.