discolored maple

[mark]

In keeping with the "firewood to boards" thread, I noticed that some of these maple boards with the beautiful figure (is it called curly, or quilted, or tiger, or are they all the same?) have some sort of greyish discoloration which I assume is some sort of mold starting. I've tried a few types of weak acid solutions on some test parts (oxylic, muriatic, phosphoric) and it didn't seem to touch it. I didn't have any clorox to try that, but I will get some tomorrow if someone thinks it will work. I almost went as far as to take some of the chlorine powder from the pool and mix some with water and slather it on...

[George]

Don't bother. It's there, and will be. Think of trying some alcohol-soluble dyes to mask it. Between pristine white and pretty spalt is a lot of ugly, that's for sure.

[SonomaProducts.com]

The wood you is called "Spalted", another indicator such as Quilted, Curly, Birds Eye and Tiger.

Spalted wood has discolorations from minerals and other intrusions into the wood. I can't beleiev you'll be able to bleach the splating away and have any wood left. This is much more common in soft Maple as opposed to hard (hard Rock or Sugar) Maple.

Quilted is a beatufil figue in the wood that looks like little pillows. Iyt is a bit less evident on the raw wood but with the right finish it can be stunning and look as if someone has place a piece of glass over an actuall pillowy wood.

Curly is really a forerunner to quilted. It has curly grain lines that go squiggle around. when it is lots of closed bubble looking forms that is what causes the quilted look.

Birds Eye, is curly Maple with lots of little black dots, the size of a bird's eye. I think this is caused by a burl type effect of you've seen the little nubs on a burl where all the suckers are shooting out.

Tiger has striped figure, like on a Tiger.

Lots o' different woods have these types of figure with the possible exception Birds Eye, maybe some can correct me but I've only ever seen Bird's Eye in Maple.

BW

[max]

That is called spalted maple. I will take it if you don't want it. max

[Nate Perkins]

"mark" wrote in news:N04vd.118551$ [e-mail]:

My most highly figured boards of soft (red leaf) curly maple have a fair amount of grayish coloring to them. It's not really like a typical spalting; e.g., it's not streaked or multicolored. It's more like white vs light grey, following the kind of pattern of the sort like you'd see in sapwood vs heartwood -- at least in my boards.

The wood finishes beautifully. I've usually used a combination of light aniline dye, oil, and shellac (a la Jeff Jewitt's early American, but lighter). Wish I could get a dozen more boards like it.