Brown Rot–The Enemy of Spalted Wood

Philip — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Nice spindle made from spalted wood (noricum/Flickr)

A while back I posted a piece on spalted wood, which is favored by woodworkers because of its interesting coloration and patterns. Finewoodworking.com recently posted an article, Spalt Your Own Lumber: Just Say No To Brown Rot!, discussing how brown rot fungi can ruin attempts at producing spalted wood.

I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog talking about white rot – the fungi that cause bleaching and zone lines on spalted wood. What I haven’t talked much about, however, is white rot’s evil twin, brown rot. Brown rot grows primarily on conifers, while rot tends to prefer hardwoods. However, when presented with no other option, brown rots will grow on hardwoods, especially in spalting tubs!

Spalting Good, Brown Rot Bad

Daedalea quercina causes a brown rot of oak (Joseph O'Brien, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org)

The problem arises because brown rot fungi create regions of crumbly wood that can rarely be machined into a quality piece. Not cool.

It might be hard to machine cleanly, and it no doubt has led to the ruin of many an otherwise nice wooden bowl, but brown rot pockets look pretty good in wood used for paneling.

Pecky cypress lumber caused by Stereum taxodii brown pocket rot (James Solomon, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org)

Spalted Wood

Philip — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:14:35 +0000

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.

MycoRant » woodworking

Brown Rot–The Enemy of Spalted Wood

Spalted Wood