MycoRant » spalting http://mycorant.com Seen any good fungus movies lately? Sat, 19 May 2012 16:37:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Spalted Wood http://mycorant.com/spalted-wood/ http://mycorant.com/spalted-wood/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:14:35 +0000 Philip http://mycorant.com/?p=941 Spalted wood is  a favorite of many woodworkers because of its interesting and unusual coloration. Under the right conditions, certain decay fungi that have infected the wood (sometimes while it is still living unfortunately) will create blue, pink, gray, black or even several-colored patterns in the wood. There are methods for producing artificial spalting but they seldom have the same appeal as the real thing.

If the wood is harvested at the right time it makes for some good material to work with. If harvested too late, the wood is crumbly, soft or “punky” and isn’t very good. Some outlets sell spalted wood of various varieties. Some patient entrepreneurs  even intentionally inoculate trees with fungi hoping to harvest a bounty of valuable spalted lumber after many years.

I hate to admit it (because of the title) but Spalting, A Fungus Amongus by Andrew Hilton does a god job of discussing spalted wood from both a woodworker’s and a biological perspective.

More on spalted wood:

Spalted Birch Boards

The Spalted Wood

How to Spalt Wood

Spalted Wood (from Fine Woodworking)

How to use fungus to make unique, decorative wood pieces with colors and streaking

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