Question About Figure In Wood......

[Corey Hallagan]

I know there are alot of terms to describe figure in wood and was wondering what really is the difference. You hear about wood being curly, flame, fiddle back etc. What constitues fiddle back or is it the same as flame? Curly maple for example is light figure not to the degree as a flame maple?

In addition, I love the spalted woods. I thought that spalting was caused by a disease in the tree, but I thought I read a post awhile back where a guy did something to get the wood to spalt and in another post a guy had a piece of wood that spalted on him while sitting in the wood pile? Does this happen or can you reall you really force wood to spalt.

Thanks,
Corey

[Dennis Peacock]

Corey,

Spalting is a result of a fungus in the wood that is a good indicator of the beginning of decay. And yes, you can allow a log to sit for a while and it will spalt if all conditions are right.

On the Tiger Stripe, Flame, Curley thang? I don't honestly know off the top of my head, but I would use it depending on how much money I wanted from a customer. Cheaper prices only get curly maple, more expensive pieces get Flame or Tiger Stripe. Same wood pile, but the different term constitutes the higher price to the customer.

[andy Needles]

You leave it out in the rain for awhile and it will spalt, but it is difficult to tell how much without opening it up. Certain kinds of woods spalt more readily than others, like maple and alder. - my $.02

Andy

[Reed Gray]

I don't get all of the different names for the figure in wood. I have a few arborist friends and they all call figured wood 'reaction wood'. The easiest explanation of that is that the wood is under stress, and reacts by doing an accordian type of thing with the fiber. I remember hearing once that the Brittish call most of it 'rippled' which is another good description, but I don't know if that is true either.
robo hippy

[Ian Abraham]

I agree with the others, it's usually a physical ripple in the wood grain. Small areas will often form around branches or forks in a tree. Other times a leaning tree will form large areas on the whole trunk. Both these are reaction wood, they will be less stable and harder to work. Sometimes a tree will form large amounts of curly grain for no obvious reason, those are the best ones and give whole boards with neat grain

Spalting is the first stage of fungus starting to break down the wood. You can encourage it by leaving green wood on the ground / in a plastic bag etc. You need a damp warm environment, like you would grow mushrooms in. The trick is to rescue the wood before it turns to mush, then dry it to stop the fungus growing any more.

Cheers

Ian

[Chris Barton]

Hi Corey,

As the previous posts have said, spalted wood has a fungus that turns part of it black with streaks and this can be done by design but, pretty much only in green wood. Some folks will try to spalt their freshly cut wood by doing something like covering it with a tarp in a warm mosit place for a few months. But, this can be like making wine, too long in the "cooker" so to speak, and it's rotten or completely infested with insects. Maple is fairly easy to spalt.

Then all the othe discriptions regarding grain basicly are depictions of the "figure" seen in the wood. For instance, some call this quilted maple:


And then call this curly maple:


Flame and tiger maple are just variations of curly mapple.

[John Hart]

It's my understanding that spalting occurs when the natural yeasts on the plant begin the decay process by eating the sugar that naturally occurs in the tree. Much like the powdery yeast on the outside of a grape.....When the grape falls to the ground and the skin is broken, the yeast on the outside is exposed to the sugar on the inside and begins to grow and ferment the grape...decay occurs and the circle of life continues.

You can cause your own spalting using yeast and sugar and moisture, but I've read that some yeasts won't work with certain trees....however, if you had some ash that you wanted to spalt, you could take some spalted ash shavings and bury the good piece in the spalted shavings with some sugar water, and the spalting will migrate through to the target piece.

I also heard that you can pour beer on the wood and the yeast in the beer will do the job.

Or you could just drink the beer and sit around and talk about spalting!

[Dennis Peacock]

I also heard that you can pour beer on the wood and the yeast in the beer will do the job.

Or you could just drink the beer and sit around and talk about spalting!

LOL!!! ROFL!!!!!! Good one John!!! <a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008_ZNxmk311BBUS' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_1_72.gif' border=0></a>

[Curt Fuller]

Or you could just drink the beer and sit around and talk about spalting!

That one get's my vote!

Also, add 'feathering' to the list of wood figure. My wood turning mentor, Clead Christensen, uses that to describe the figure that occurs in crotch wood.

[Andy Hoyt]

Corey - All that Hickory I've been wrecking lately was intentionally left on the ground under a pile of leaves for about three years as experiment to see what would happen. Yup, it spalted. But based on what I've dealt with thus far, I think it was left on the ground a wee bit longish. How much, who knows? Tough to turn mush, but sure is pretty.

And I agree that that best to way to discuss spalting is with a mug of spalted malted brew in hand.

PS: Nice pic! Is my royalty check in the mail?

[Corey Hallagan]

Thanks guys! some good info. I got to thinking about the figure part because of how one dealer lables it curly, another tiger flame and another will call it fiddle back. I guess Dennis's probably right on.

Andy, check is in the mail. It was so cute it needed to be seen every day!

Corey

[Frank Fusco]

I'm experimenting with spalting some box elder pen blanks right now. They have been in a large plastic bucket, buried in leaves, 'stuff' off the ground, some rotted wood and whatever for about six weeks and kept moist. Spalting and fungus is just beginning to show but the weather has warmed up quite a bit and I'll be watching closely from now on. Others have reccomended burying in manure. I've given up cattle ranching. Others can do the manure bit and report the results.

[Paul Downes]

Figured wood is caused by various factors. In maple, the curly is sometimes genetic and other times stress related. The stress related wood is often found in the butt section or limb area of large trees while other trees are curly throughout the entire trunk.

Birdseye is caused by stress factors and usually birdseye maple will be found in certain soil types on North facing slopes with a dominant tree overshadowing the maple. I have often noticed the conditions and spotted a gnarly looking hard maple from the distance and sure enough it has eye in it. Sometimes you can see the eye in the bark, but not always. Often the overshadowing tree is a large hemlock.

I have been told that the diffence between curly and tiger figure is merely detemined on how the tree is sawed. However, I have seen curly maple that has straight curls and other ones that have interlocking curls. I tried to buy a few curl logs from a guy a few years back. He had dropped about 20 logs off at my brother-in-laws place, and it was interesting to see the variation in curl width. I called him 3 days running and every day he was in a different state bidding on logging jobs. End of the story, he refused to sell me the logs but neglected to pick them up for several months. In the end they were all stained and my Father-in-law eventually sawed one up for me but didn't get the deminsions I wanted. What a collosal waste.