Most of the oaks do that here too. There's a VERY fine line between good
and bad with that wood. But I tend to find, too, with most oaks, it's the
Brown Rot that gets to it first and does all the decaying too quickly. It's
still a fine line regardless the wood but red, black, and most other oaks
are bad about that. I have no market for anything other than the White Oaks
so I don't bother messing with the others.

However, I DID get my hands on a Blackjack Oak that was spalted as it stood
dead. I actually got it for the huge burl it had on it and found the nice
surprise of spalting too in the burl and the rest of the trunk. If you've
never seen Blackjack Oak wood, it's a natural beauty.... the wood, not the
tree. The tree species looks terrible itself. I've made a couple of small
things from the rest of the trunk but haven't taken pictures yet. I did
just cut out a 16" diameter x 6" thick bowl blank from part of it the other
day. Heavy damn wood! I have no lathe to turn that thing yet but hope to
by the time it's dry. The burl pieces and rest of the trunk is either in
the woodturning blank shed or going to be there by next weekend for a long
rest and drying. But I digress....

Don't bother with the red oak unless it's a burl. Same goes for post oak.
The spalting you'll likely get isn't too interesting anyway. But that's a
personal opinion. The hackberry I have no market for either but I
occasionally throw a log in there to spalt. It's spalts well and the
definition really stands out with that white white wood. You can get some
purples, blues, greens and some reds sometimes with that wood too.
Outstanding! I wish I had a market for that as it's a beautiful spalted
wood and I get most of my turning stock (certainly all of my domestics) from
my spalting cutoffs. So, club members can tell what I'm dealing with in
that business recently just by looking at my show and tell items at the
meetings. g Well, except for the Cocobolo and other exotics. No .... I
don't have those woods stashed around here in the Ozarks.

Yes, I use the same "farm" for everything. It's only 1 type of fungus (with
some supporting fungus types but basically just one main one) that produces
what we call "spalt". It is a White Rot type of fungus.

A short sidenote here that I try to mention once in awhile when we talk
spalting: There are all kinds of wood coloration caused by all kinds of
mechanisms, organisms (or no organism at all), methods and magic with
spalting being just one type.

Therefore, only one type of fungus causes our "spalting". So, why the wide
range of colors, patterns, and effects WITH SPALTING (not counting the other
types of coloration possible)? There are a lot of factors including
minerals in the soil/water, humidity/temp fluctuations, other contaminates
in the soil/water, tree reaction due to it's own structure and/or mineral,
etc. contents. Lots of things affect it and the best part is, you just
never really know until you cut into it. Those things you can't control
like you can other factors.

"If I use the shavings from this blank as a starter...."

Not likely. Unless your spalted bowl blank is really wet (not dripping but
"wet" or green as we woodturners like to say) and has been kept an optimal
temperature to keep those fungus alive and well AND it has enough of those
fungal colonies still active AND if they have a ready access to transfer
over to your unspalted wood (we're not talking flying spores as in ragweed
here!), then it probably won't do it. That's not to say that it's not worth
a shot though. In theory, if many conditions are right, then it might work.

- Andrew


Andrew,
I have never seen spalted oak. Most around here (central Texas) seems to
just go from OK to soft to rot. I have some white oak, red oak, and post
oak
and some hackberry that I'd like to try to spalt. Do you use the same
fungus
"farm" for your oak as you do for the others? I have a spalted oak bowl
blank. If I use the shaving from this blank as a starter mulch, should it
do
ok on the oak? TIA for additional info.

Ken Moon
Webberville, TX