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...

"mark" wrote in message
...
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...



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.

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

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

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...

"mark" wrote in
:

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...

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.