Spalted Maple guitars...show 'em off,

Kalimna

As far as I know, the black lines in spalting occur when two competing fungal colonies interact. They are very much 'battle lines'.

Beech produces some of the nicest spalting available, but is otherwise a fairly dull wood. I do have some rather nicely patterned spalted birch, but it has gone too far to do anything major with - the rot has turned the wood soft.

One way to stabilise the softer spalting is to flood it with thin superglue. I imagine thin epoxy might work too, but I haven't tried that.

Some nice guitars up above

Adam

WezV

Kalimna said:

One way to stabilise the softer spalting is to flood it with thin superglue.

In my experience, its not foolproof and might not penetrate as much as you expect.

I did a carved top which I stabilised with the thinnest superglue before carving.  I used a few bottles until it stopped soaking in.  But when carving I found it had only hardened the top 2 mm and I was quickly back to soft wood.  

  The second blackburst above used an acrylised spalted maple top - basically pressure treated with an acrylic resin and cured in a special oven to make it consistently hard all the way through

Whitecat

axisus said:

Whitecat said:

Knaggs Severn Tier 2

I'm really liking that! is it yours?

Yes, thanks!

Kalimna

Wez - Is there a way to use an acrylic resin for stabilising without specialist pressure treatment? Having done a little woodturning with spalted wood, I know what you mean about the sinkage being less than you might hope. I suppose one way to approach it (if using as a thinnish cap) might be to treat the underneath with cyano and then the top surface once near finish-carved.

Adam

WezV

Kalimna said:

Wez - Is there a way to use an acrylic resin for stabilising without specialist pressure treatment? Having done a little woodturning with spalted wood, I know what you mean about the sinkage being less than you might hope. I suppose one way to approach it (if using as a thinnish cap) might be to treat the underneath with cyano and then the top surface once near finish-carved.

Adam

I don't know - Larry Davis (Gallery Hardwoods) used to do it and I had a few tops and fretboards from him, probably about 12 years ago and he was always talking about retiring back then.   The exchange rate made it very reasonable back then.

@Skelf might know more on that front

skelf

Larry has retired, sort of. He still works with myself and one other builder that I know of in relation to the acrylic impregnated woods.

ChuckManual

timmysoft said:

Gassage said:

What actually causes spalting? Is it a fungal growth or something? Mineral staining?

Treebola

I'm sorry, but this pun deserves more praise than it's got!

Voxman

Sorry if this is going against the grain, and maybe I'm bark-ing mad, but am I the only one here who thinks this type of guitar wood and finish looks horrible, cheap and nasty?  

WezV

It can look like wet cardboard.  Which is what I think of when I see a lot of factory spalted guitars... but I still think the right bit can be pretty