Unlike professional turners, and unless you already live in or near a forest, wood is not always easy to come by. I love finding sustainable and environmentally friendly sources like neighbors fallen trees. Sometimes I buy from local lumber supplier. I also often troll e-bay looking for those special pieces of grainy wood, burls, or exotics. Spalted woods often attract my attention but I have found mixed success with these pieces.
On several occasions a costly but beautiful piece of spalted wood arrives that has been… overspalted, if I can coin a word. The latest piece of Maple arrived well sealed in wax. I admired this block for weeks while I was overwhelmed with my day job. I couldn’t wait to get past this big project and begin making sawdust!
You can imagine my disappointment, when I was finally ready to turn, I discovered that the block had spalted to the point that “spalting” was no longer an appropriate term. Significantly rotted is a much better description. The wood was so soft, I could literally pinch chucks of wood out between my fingers.
A couple quick hours of searching the web and I discovered that there are many different theories on how to best stabilize wood. For me however, a penturners website showed the most promise and seemed the most logical.
With and idea and some direction, I had to come up with a vacuum chamber large enough to hold a 10″ x 5″ block. I elected to try some leftover PVC pipe I used to plumb my dust collector. With a threaded end-cap on one end, I used a forstner bit to make a recess on top to accept a piece of lexan as a view port. A couple of fittings as well and the vacuum chamber was complete.
The only challenge I encountered was the lack of an adequate seal. This was solved by coating the threads with paste wax. With that I was easily drawing and holding a vacuum.
The wood was placed inside and completely covered with polyurethane. I then applied the vacuum and watched the bubbles form as the air was pulled from the wood. I allowed the wood to sit overnight to ensure the polyurethane had ample time to soak it.
After two days of drying, I mounted the block and began turning. While I did experience some tear-out the wood remained solid.
Ultimately, I was able to finish this piece of wood that by all accounts would have been nothing but trash. In the end, I am so thankful, because it turned out to be one of the most striking pieces I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Looking the finished piece, it is only the small amount of reddish wood on the left that was naturally solid, all remaining wood is stabilized.
