Acer spp. of the family Aceraceae. This is not a particular species of maple, but rather a FIGURE of maple. Spalted maple typically has the "classic black-line" spalting that is exactly what most people think of when they think of spalting. Other woods sometimes have very diffuse dispersion of the fungus. Oak spalting, for example, if often a releatively ugly spread of black stain.
my samples:
both sides of a humongous slab of spalted maple that is over two feet by two feet and almost 3 inches thick --- donated by Jim Glynn, whom I thank profusely. The pics don't quite do justice to the piece --- the color is a little better than what shows up here, but at least the enlargements show the spalting lines very nicely. Jim rough-cut this with a chain saw, so it's very rough. I have now made a couple of bowl blanks from this piece and they show the color better. See directly below.
two views of the first bowl blank made from the big piece above. This is 9" across. As you can see if you look at all carefully, there are a couple of cracks in this blank, so I don't know how the bowl will turn out.
well, OK, now I've done the bowl and this is how it turned out. Pretty neat, I think. The flaw is very obvious (it's on the lower right of the second pic in the raw series and on the middle left of the bowl pics) but if you're optimistic like me you can look at it as just adding character to the piece. The second pic is after a coat of natural stain. As you can see, I stabilized the flaw with glue before putting on the stain. Once the piece is covered with polyurethane, the glue will be far less obvious. I hope. :-)
This was easy to turn in that the wood is quite soft, but it was hard to turn in that as the end grain came around into the gouge, it tended to crush sideways if the tool wasn't razor sharp.
two views of the second bowl blank made from the big piece above. This is 9" across. The gouge on the right side of the 2nd pic is where I had to dig out a nail that was embedded in the piece. Also, that side is not yet fully sanded flat and you can still see some of the chain saw gouges.
two views of a spalted maple bowl blank that is 6 1/2" in diameter and about 2 1/2" thick
plank shot at Lowes, chosen because it has some weird spalting in it.
all of the pics below are of some thick veneer that I got in an odds and ends lot from a jewlery box maker who makes his own veneer. As far as either of us know, this kind of veneer is simply not available commercially. I put in so many pictures because this is just an outstanding set of examples of the variety of what really good spalted maple can look like. The spalting lines appear somewhat ragged in these pics but that is an artifact of the image reduction. If you go to the "enlargement" (which is actually the original image), the you will see the lines as they really look.
a couple of thins donated by Jim Glynn --- thanks Jim.
web pics
planks
spalted planks from a vendor whom I know puts too much red in her pics. The spalt lines, which are terrific, show up much better in the enlargement
bookmatched planks with two closeups. I'm confident this has been moistened and the dark reddish color is not likely to be correct
bookmatched spalted pair and closeup --- color looks to me to probably be very accurate
bookmatched spalted pair --- color looks to me to probably be very accurate
curly plank, almost certainly moistened for the pic
pen blanks --- it appears to me that all but the last of these has been moistened (probably waxed)
bowl blanks with edges dipped in wax
turning sticks with ends dipped in wax
turning stock
both sides of a turning round
turning round
curly turning round
spalted burl
spalted maple pistol grips
spalted maple flower vase and bowl
two views of a bowl by Mike Hawkins
bowl made from spalted sugar maple
vase and bowl
guitar back (undoubtedly moistened, but even so, quite stunning in color and variety) and a thin-wood pair ready to make into a guitar back
