LumberJocks Woodworking Forum banner
81K views 143 replies 29 participants last post by  mafe 
#1 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
 

Attachments

See less See more
6
#2 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
interressting blog
thank´s for sharring :)

take care
Dennis
 

Attachments

#3 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
Hi Thomas,
Beautiful the little green piece.
I see the forest with new eyes now.
Best thoughts,
Mads
 

Attachments

#4 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
Thomas, I have never seen fungal coloration other than the dark brown almost black streaks that we commonly see. Since this is a chlorophyl based organism it would seem to be found where light could get to it to help "power" the fungus. Is the Ca more toxic than the regular fungus as far as working with the wood? Cool that you are taking the time to learn about this and the process that goes with it.
 

Attachments

#5 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
@ Ken: Chlorociboria, despite its name, doesn't produce any chlorophyl :) it's a very different pigment, called xylindein. And it's absolutely not toxic. Check out Dr Spalting's post on FWW on the matter of the relative dangers of spalting fungi vs wood dust ;)
 

Attachments

#6 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
The colours are beautiful Thomas or is it something I'm smoking? (quick whammy bar dive bomb)
Best
Trevor
 

Attachments

#7 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
@ Trevor: baby milk powder isn't suitable for grown-ups ;)
 

Attachments

#8 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
Now you tell me??
 

Attachments

#9 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
  • sends a pack o'beer to Trevor *
    That's a man's milk crate :p
 

Attachments

#10 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
I found the blog, now to find time to read it. :)
 

Attachments

#11 ·
pictures of an early colonization by Chlorociboria aeruginascens

Hey guys,

Having recently decided that I couldn't continue refering to the blue-green stained wood as "stained by some mysterious fungi", I dug out everything I could find on Google and ended up with a boatload of pictures and, most importantly, data and contacts.

So I found out that Fine WoodWorking contributor S.Robinson actually works in the bio research field and haz specialized in the fungi that spalt or stain wood.

Wait, did I just write "haz"? Em, I think I gotta quit LOLcats >cough<

Anyway, I was all like "OMG", grabbed all the info that I could, left my brain cells digest all that and spit out some conclusions and questions that need to be answered, along with questions I posted to Dr Spalting (great and appropriate nickname BTW).

So here comes the personal experience part that lead to the aforementioned questions: last december, during a spalted-wood hunt in the woods of my Southern France village, my sister and I stumbled upon several nice pieces of green-stained wood. Among them was an almost entirely unsuspected one: a beech trunk from a stump near which I had found my latest specimen to date last summer. One of the smallest trunks (~8 cm Ø) was calling me like "shake me baby" and I gave it a go. The highest part fell down, but it had nothing interesting. So I was left with around 4 meters of that trunk, and decided to look more closely into it (alas I didn't think about merely removing the bark - now I know). I broke it down to its lowest part, then into several pieces, and ran into a green stained zone. Ha, that's what I'm talking about! Now the pictures before going any further:

Saving Coin Finger Currency Money


Artifact Finger Thumb Natural material Fashion accessory


Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


(there was obviously a previous colonizer in that zone of the wood, hence the black lines that herder the stain from Ca)

Said green stained zone was small, as you can see I managed to get two small chunks from the two trunk sections. Something in the 10 cm neighborhood for its length (along the trunk) and not more than 2 cm into the wood and 3 in width.

There are several things that I noticed with my finds of that day: the stain from Chlorociboria aeruginascens (I'll call it C.a. from now on) started right under the bark, far away from the easiest ways to enter. The big stained trunk my sister found a few minutes later not far from there also had its Ca-stained zone around the center of the trunk, though it was laying on the ground under dead leaves, and infested by many other fungi (and even ants), and was completely wet and with a rather hard vinegar smell (from the decaying processes). Still, the Ca had entered it at around the same distance from the stump than the previous small find.

So, why a blog series on that matter? Well, when I get to my village next time, I will go back to that very stump and check more precisely the remaining trunks, peel off the bark of those that are blatantly dead, look for green, and if present, take a few measurements and most importantly bring the whole trunk back home (they're not that much bigger than the whole boxwood trunks I stick into mum's Corsa anyway) and cut evenly-spaced and numbered slices to check for other colonizations.

Dr Robinson and her teammates found out during their research that Ca is somewhat of a picky fungus that seems rather difficult to tame, if not impossible, in the lab. My idea is to let Mother Nature do it herself but with a slight help by inoculating the fungus in selected trees at what seems to be the optimal position height-wise, and see what happens next.
;)
 

Attachments

#12 ·
hunting for Chlorociboria sp, take two: WIN.

Hey guys,

So basically I had the chance to get back to my southern village a few days ago. Having some fine time to spend while my elbow was healing from an unfortunate accident at work, the first thing I did was to run into the woods to get to the previous Ca find spot. I can't tell you how bad that thing was haunting me.

Well, I didn't get to measure things as I wanted to (next time!), and instead I merely kicked down all the trunks from a dead stump (not sure it's the right word - correct me if needed) and peeling them right there, which was quite fun by the way.

As opposed to what I first thought, the stain from Chlorociboria doesn't get from the very beginning into the bark, but still runs into the wood. It happens that the trace left by Ca in its early colonization stage's entry point is a very dark brownish-green, so much that in fact you have to pay extra attention to find it. The weather wasn't good enough for me for a close inspection on site, so I basically broke everything down into manageable sized pieces, peeled everything, and brought the good spalted stuff home. Then all of the sudden, while breaking down one of the trunks, tadaaa, the treasure showed up. And of course the breaking happened right in the middle of the Ca-stained zone. Oh, well. Here are a few shots of the portion of interest I'm talking about:

Wood Artifact Eyewear Automotive design Art


Wood Artifact Art Tints and shades Trunk


I outlined the tell-tale spots here for added clarity. As can be seen, there's a dark spot in the brown zone, right under where the bark was. A slight farther towards the top of the tree, there was a visibly green portion. The full resolution picture is here , without the red lines, so you can look more precisely at it and see what to look after when hunting for Ca in the woods.

I only kept the interesting part of that piece of wood, because the stain isn't big or dark enough to use it for cutting veneer. I can still carve something out of it, as with the chunk from the previous find (you'll get a chance to see the finished piece when I'll have decided on what its final shape has to be, the color itself is incredible).

As with my previous "standing find", the Ca stained zone was relatively high above the ground, in this case it was a bit less than a meter, but I didn't bother to bring my tape measure. That's not rocket science after all, but as a rule of thumb it seems that Ca attacks at belly height, at least in my area of "research".

Anyway, lesson learned #1: Ca infestation happens early and while the tree is still standing, visibly around 1 meter above the ground, when a previous colonization from a fungus TBD has occurred.

The interesting thing about this very piece of wood, as for the previous early find, is that it's deeply spalted, but the wood fibers have NOT been damaged: it's still very hard and has no insect attacks. So far so good. It also seems that the very first colonizer ate all the first layer of wood under the bark, as hinted by the slight depression into which the initial Ca colonization shows up.

Lesson learned #2: peel off all the bark from the trunk before attempting any sawing, or you could end up sawing or breaking right into the good stuff as I did.

I applied that to the trunks I kicked next, peeling off the bark (with my Swiss Army knife when needed), and looking for green. Bingo for those that were wet enough, but not too wet. Next step will be to check for approximate moisture content, but as a rule of thumb you want them not too wet and not too dry. Covered with fresh moss is okay, but I found out that oak is rather hard to penetrate by Ca, even if I brought back home three 30 inch long pieces with visible green stain. I just find that birch or beech are far easier to find stained and to work with, once dry and stabilized if need be.

Oh, and of course, I went back to the laying trunk where my sister had found the biggest chunk to date, and BINGO again, the upper part of that very piece had developed the same deep green stain. And of course that new piece is home with me here, but this time I'm leaving it dry slowly - the previous block split like crazy, but that was quite expected. A good idea is to secure a place in the area of the find and erect a little platform with some kind of roof to put the finds into and leave them to dry very slowly in the exact same conditions where they started to decay. Having them around in the shop is more of an issue than anything else: I've had to set up a full-time blower next to my spalted wood pile to get the moisture out of them and prevent molds from developping and all that kind of stuff. Unless you have a kiln, that is. Which is among my projects for next summer, along with a homemade bandsaw mill. But I disgress.

Finding Ca stained wood is very exciting, at least to me, but along with it is also very fine material that also deserves to be kept: while I scored around 20 kilos of Ca-stained wood this time (among which a full 2 METER long trunk, green from top to bottom - YIKES), mind you that I brought home around 200 kilos of spalted lumber. Cut them down into ~ 50 cm (20") sections with the chainsaw once home, cleaned up the cuts with the bandsaw, opened them up after carefully choosing an orientation regarding the end-grain spalting figure, and ended up with a bunch of half-rounds that will live as very nice box tops or parts. Here is one of these that I also brought to Paris, and one that I dried directly and slabbed to make a box for my gal, along with what I'm all about with this Ca bizness: one of the finest slabs that I have, which is to be used for inlay on a guitar fretboard I already talked a bit about:

Wood Table Hardwood Flooring Wood stain


Wood Table Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


I also brought home fresh infested bark that I kept dry during the whole time there, but my attemps at putting it into culture have suffereed from both the time between getting it and my lack of good equipment. Dr Spalting would be yelling at me if she saw my crappy culture boxes ^^'

Something maybe of interest on that matter: a yellow mycelium has very quickly developed on my Ca-infested bark chunks, left wet and isolated from molds. I found yellow stain quite often along with rather early Ca-stain, so maybe this is a case of collaboration between two fungi, which need one another to develop. And I say maybe, I'm no pro on that matter. Will have to check that out with the fungi specialists at my university.

And as promised, I also brought back home sawdust from my first veneerings of Ca, and will use it to isolate the xylindein pigment and measure its destroying temperature point. As I already pointed out several times, Ca-stained wood must be sanded down carefully, too much heat will kill the pigment as I found out when sawing with a dull bandsaw blade which lead into the discoloration of the cutting zone. Will have that sorted out ASAP, when I'll get a chance to find a lab rat^H^H^H chemist willing to make some measures with me at the university.

Comments, questions, cursings and related ranting are welcome and expected :)
 

Attachments

#13 ·
hunting for Chlorociboria sp, take two: WIN.

Hey guys,

So basically I had the chance to get back to my southern village a few days ago. Having some fine time to spend while my elbow was healing from an unfortunate accident at work, the first thing I did was to run into the woods to get to the previous Ca find spot. I can't tell you how bad that thing was haunting me.

Well, I didn't get to measure things as I wanted to (next time!), and instead I merely kicked down all the trunks from a dead stump (not sure it's the right word - correct me if needed) and peeling them right there, which was quite fun by the way.

As opposed to what I first thought, the stain from Chlorociboria doesn't get from the very beginning into the bark, but still runs into the wood. It happens that the trace left by Ca in its early colonization stage's entry point is a very dark brownish-green, so much that in fact you have to pay extra attention to find it. The weather wasn't good enough for me for a close inspection on site, so I basically broke everything down into manageable sized pieces, peeled everything, and brought the good spalted stuff home. Then all of the sudden, while breaking down one of the trunks, tadaaa, the treasure showed up. And of course the breaking happened right in the middle of the Ca-stained zone. Oh, well. Here are a few shots of the portion of interest I'm talking about:

Wood Artifact Eyewear Automotive design Art


Wood Artifact Art Tints and shades Trunk


I outlined the tell-tale spots here for added clarity. As can be seen, there's a dark spot in the brown zone, right under where the bark was. A slight farther towards the top of the tree, there was a visibly green portion. The full resolution picture is here , without the red lines, so you can look more precisely at it and see what to look after when hunting for Ca in the woods.

I only kept the interesting part of that piece of wood, because the stain isn't big or dark enough to use it for cutting veneer. I can still carve something out of it, as with the chunk from the previous find (you'll get a chance to see the finished piece when I'll have decided on what its final shape has to be, the color itself is incredible).

As with my previous "standing find", the Ca stained zone was relatively high above the ground, in this case it was a bit less than a meter, but I didn't bother to bring my tape measure. That's not rocket science after all, but as a rule of thumb it seems that Ca attacks at belly height, at least in my area of "research".

Anyway, lesson learned #1: Ca infestation happens early and while the tree is still standing, visibly around 1 meter above the ground, when a previous colonization from a fungus TBD has occurred.

The interesting thing about this very piece of wood, as for the previous early find, is that it's deeply spalted, but the wood fibers have NOT been damaged: it's still very hard and has no insect attacks. So far so good. It also seems that the very first colonizer ate all the first layer of wood under the bark, as hinted by the slight depression into which the initial Ca colonization shows up.

Lesson learned #2: peel off all the bark from the trunk before attempting any sawing, or you could end up sawing or breaking right into the good stuff as I did.

I applied that to the trunks I kicked next, peeling off the bark (with my Swiss Army knife when needed), and looking for green. Bingo for those that were wet enough, but not too wet. Next step will be to check for approximate moisture content, but as a rule of thumb you want them not too wet and not too dry. Covered with fresh moss is okay, but I found out that oak is rather hard to penetrate by Ca, even if I brought back home three 30 inch long pieces with visible green stain. I just find that birch or beech are far easier to find stained and to work with, once dry and stabilized if need be.

Oh, and of course, I went back to the laying trunk where my sister had found the biggest chunk to date, and BINGO again, the upper part of that very piece had developed the same deep green stain. And of course that new piece is home with me here, but this time I'm leaving it dry slowly - the previous block split like crazy, but that was quite expected. A good idea is to secure a place in the area of the find and erect a little platform with some kind of roof to put the finds into and leave them to dry very slowly in the exact same conditions where they started to decay. Having them around in the shop is more of an issue than anything else: I've had to set up a full-time blower next to my spalted wood pile to get the moisture out of them and prevent molds from developping and all that kind of stuff. Unless you have a kiln, that is. Which is among my projects for next summer, along with a homemade bandsaw mill. But I disgress.

Finding Ca stained wood is very exciting, at least to me, but along with it is also very fine material that also deserves to be kept: while I scored around 20 kilos of Ca-stained wood this time (among which a full 2 METER long trunk, green from top to bottom - YIKES), mind you that I brought home around 200 kilos of spalted lumber. Cut them down into ~ 50 cm (20") sections with the chainsaw once home, cleaned up the cuts with the bandsaw, opened them up after carefully choosing an orientation regarding the end-grain spalting figure, and ended up with a bunch of half-rounds that will live as very nice box tops or parts. Here is one of these that I also brought to Paris, and one that I dried directly and slabbed to make a box for my gal, along with what I'm all about with this Ca bizness: one of the finest slabs that I have, which is to be used for inlay on a guitar fretboard I already talked a bit about:

Wood Table Hardwood Flooring Wood stain


Wood Table Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


I also brought home fresh infested bark that I kept dry during the whole time there, but my attemps at putting it into culture have suffereed from both the time between getting it and my lack of good equipment. Dr Spalting would be yelling at me if she saw my crappy culture boxes ^^'

Something maybe of interest on that matter: a yellow mycelium has very quickly developed on my Ca-infested bark chunks, left wet and isolated from molds. I found yellow stain quite often along with rather early Ca-stain, so maybe this is a case of collaboration between two fungi, which need one another to develop. And I say maybe, I'm no pro on that matter. Will have to check that out with the fungi specialists at my university.

And as promised, I also brought back home sawdust from my first veneerings of Ca, and will use it to isolate the xylindein pigment and measure its destroying temperature point. As I already pointed out several times, Ca-stained wood must be sanded down carefully, too much heat will kill the pigment as I found out when sawing with a dull bandsaw blade which lead into the discoloration of the cutting zone. Will have that sorted out ASAP, when I'll get a chance to find a lab rat^H^H^H chemist willing to make some measures with me at the university.

Comments, questions, cursings and related ranting are welcome and expected :)
It all sounds very clever and terribly scientific, way beyond a mere woodworker like me. BUT Man that spalting is beautiful! And those colors! Wowsters! Isn't wood and nature just incredible!
 

Attachments

#17 ·
First culture attempts update, and eye candy.

Hey guys,

Just for a quick update. The cultures I attempted last time did actually work to some degree. Something grew inside the agar mix :p
No stain from the Ca culture yet and I don't really expect any to happen. I also grew the accompanying yellow fungus, which actually develops rather agressively into the culture medium. Certainly a big white rot fungus there, Fomes Fomentarius probably, knowing that it was on the tree I took the infested bark from.

For the next mushy hunting season I will have the appropriate equipment to grow them in decent laboratory conditions and see what happens.

Meanwhile, I'll inoculate the culture in a live tree and let it all happen for a year or so before cutting it down and checking what happened. My culture boxes (chinese sauce containers actually) are, well, unworthy of being shown, so sorry but no pictures until I get myself some decent-looking petri boxes :p

As a "forgive me" for that lack of a decent culture shot, here is what has become of this piece I had showed you in the first post of this series:

Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


And after some basic sanding, as I haven't already decided which of the possible designs I figured out to carve it into, alongside its future base (which is the leftover portion from the lid of the sumac bandsaw box I made last summer for mom):

Wood Rectangle Toothbrush holder Cylinder Chair


Oh, and the base is finished in BLO and blonde dewaxed shellac.

More to come soon!

Cheers!
 

Attachments

#18 ·
First culture attempts update, and eye candy.

Hey guys,

Just for a quick update. The cultures I attempted last time did actually work to some degree. Something grew inside the agar mix :p
No stain from the Ca culture yet and I don't really expect any to happen. I also grew the accompanying yellow fungus, which actually develops rather agressively into the culture medium. Certainly a big white rot fungus there, Fomes Fomentarius probably, knowing that it was on the tree I took the infested bark from.

For the next mushy hunting season I will have the appropriate equipment to grow them in decent laboratory conditions and see what happens.

Meanwhile, I'll inoculate the culture in a live tree and let it all happen for a year or so before cutting it down and checking what happened. My culture boxes (chinese sauce containers actually) are, well, unworthy of being shown, so sorry but no pictures until I get myself some decent-looking petri boxes :p

As a "forgive me" for that lack of a decent culture shot, here is what has become of this piece I had showed you in the first post of this series:

Finger Artifact Natural material Wood Thumb


And after some basic sanding, as I haven't already decided which of the possible designs I figured out to carve it into, alongside its future base (which is the leftover portion from the lid of the sumac bandsaw box I made last summer for mom):

Wood Rectangle Toothbrush holder Cylinder Chair


Oh, and the base is finished in BLO and blonde dewaxed shellac.

More to come soon!

Cheers!
That is nice.
The possibilities are endless.

jamie
 

Attachments

#27 ·
Second culture attempts

So the admin of a french mycology website sent me several fresh pieces of Salix with lots of fruiting bodies of Chlorociboria Aeruginosa two days ago (he was also kind enough to test them for variety with his microscope, so this is an accurate naming) and I received them today, along with a little card with the nicest words written on it. AND I received my petri dishes at the very same time. Talk about timing!

So I immediately set myself into "bio geek mode" and prepared an agar culture medium, flamed my tweezers to sterilize them, and took care not to touch any inside part of the dishes nor blow towards them.

For the nutrients, having no malt on hand yet, I settled with maple syrup for a first test, to which I added a few drops of lemon juice to just acidify the medium a bit. Not having all my chemicals here doesn't help do these kind of things "cleanly" but it's still a cleaner attempt than the first one, and by the time I get to my southern village there will be plenty of Chlorociboria Aeruginascens in my forest claims, and I still have 20 twin-compartment and 18 tri-compartment petri dishes for the following cultures.

Searching through ebay was successful for finding premade agar malt medium, but the asking prices were insane, particularly on the postage fees. Well, next time. I'll be experimenting with several different nutrients anyway, all of vegetal origin: maple syrup this time, fructose next time, I'm thinking of agave syrup too (though it's a cactus, not quite the usual dish of Chlorociboria, might not work but you never know). The most certain thing is that I'll slay down a live beech tree this summer to pump out its sap and use it for the most accurate transparent culture medium I still can imagine for these tiny beasts (Dracula gone vegan, or something).

So for this second try, it's Canada, baby!

Handwriting Rectangle Font Wood Pattern


The contents of the parcel

Drinkware Automotive tire Automotive lighting Plastic wrap Glass


Petri dish galore

Font Material property Circle Number Pattern


Two dishes cooling down to room temp prior to inoculation with Chlorociboria Aeruginosa

Dishware Wood Material property Circle Tool


First plate ready (I added an internal ID after the fact with a sharpie)

Natural material Art Gas Font Circle


A close-up of the tiny beasts (2-3 mm diameter each, 1/8th")

I won't include a picture of the ascospores of this (which tells with enough evidence it's aeruginosa) as I don't own the copyright, but you can find it here.

Cheers mates!
 

Attachments

#28 ·
Second culture attempts

So the admin of a french mycology website sent me several fresh pieces of Salix with lots of fruiting bodies of Chlorociboria Aeruginosa two days ago (he was also kind enough to test them for variety with his microscope, so this is an accurate naming) and I received them today, along with a little card with the nicest words written on it. AND I received my petri dishes at the very same time. Talk about timing!

So I immediately set myself into "bio geek mode" and prepared an agar culture medium, flamed my tweezers to sterilize them, and took care not to touch any inside part of the dishes nor blow towards them.

For the nutrients, having no malt on hand yet, I settled with maple syrup for a first test, to which I added a few drops of lemon juice to just acidify the medium a bit. Not having all my chemicals here doesn't help do these kind of things "cleanly" but it's still a cleaner attempt than the first one, and by the time I get to my southern village there will be plenty of Chlorociboria Aeruginascens in my forest claims, and I still have 20 twin-compartment and 18 tri-compartment petri dishes for the following cultures.

Searching through ebay was successful for finding premade agar malt medium, but the asking prices were insane, particularly on the postage fees. Well, next time. I'll be experimenting with several different nutrients anyway, all of vegetal origin: maple syrup this time, fructose next time, I'm thinking of agave syrup too (though it's a cactus, not quite the usual dish of Chlorociboria, might not work but you never know). The most certain thing is that I'll slay down a live beech tree this summer to pump out its sap and use it for the most accurate transparent culture medium I still can imagine for these tiny beasts (Dracula gone vegan, or something).

So for this second try, it's Canada, baby!

Handwriting Rectangle Font Wood Pattern


The contents of the parcel

Drinkware Automotive tire Automotive lighting Plastic wrap Glass


Petri dish galore

Font Material property Circle Number Pattern


Two dishes cooling down to room temp prior to inoculation with Chlorociboria Aeruginosa

Dishware Wood Material property Circle Tool


First plate ready (I added an internal ID after the fact with a sharpie)

Natural material Art Gas Font Circle


A close-up of the tiny beasts (2-3 mm diameter each, 1/8th")

I won't include a picture of the ascospores of this (which tells with enough evidence it's aeruginosa) as I don't own the copyright, but you can find it here.

Cheers mates!
Hello Thomas
Now this is interesting.

Are you familiar with liquid culture of mycelium?
As for nutrients I have used sugar based ones, but I prefer a grain base.
To make it I clean the grain(usually wild bird seed without corn) by rinsing it well then l simmer it for 30 minutes or so. After it has simmered I strain the grain out of the water. Then add the "grain juice" to a quart jar and sterilize it in a pressure cooker. I have used straight "grain juice" and a "grain juice"/sugar mix also.
If you are into mushroom cultivation you probably know all this. If not I would be glad to help if I can.

What fungi work best for spalting?
I have considered trying to inoculate some small logs with multiple fungi to try and get some dark boundary lines. Maybe some day.
Thanks for sharing
Scott
 

Attachments

#41 ·
Second attempt preliminary results: win

Hey guys,

Out of the six compartments that I inoculated with Chlorociboria Aeruginosa in my petri dishes, one has absolutely settled and started growing and producing xylindein. Still I have to clean them every few days as the molds that invited themselves to the party are tough to fight, so I opted for the "gardening" method and just mow them out when they become too invasive. Using a lab culture medium would have prevented that from happening, but as I already stated in the previous post, the price is insane.

Say hello to my little friend!

Plant Astronomical object Circle Font Macro photography


I haven't finished the culture box yet, lack some tools that are at the parents'.

TTYL
 

Attachments

#42 ·
Second attempt preliminary results: win

Hey guys,

Out of the six compartments that I inoculated with Chlorociboria Aeruginosa in my petri dishes, one has absolutely settled and started growing and producing xylindein. Still I have to clean them every few days as the molds that invited themselves to the party are tough to fight, so I opted for the "gardening" method and just mow them out when they become too invasive. Using a lab culture medium would have prevented that from happening, but as I already stated in the previous post, the price is insane.

Say hello to my little friend!

Plant Astronomical object Circle Font Macro photography


I haven't finished the culture box yet, lack some tools that are at the parents'.

TTYL
Congratulations on your success thus far. I admire your tenacity.
 

Attachments

#55 ·
determining the temperature of destruction of xylindein

Hey guyzz,

So little time these days with all the work at the university. But I finally settled for a while to build a wooden clamp for test tubes to make a first measurement of the temperature at which xylindein, the pigment produced by Chlorociboriae, permanently loses its color.

As you all know, sanding wood leads to quite high temperatures at the surface, and I had previously noticed that xylindein was destroyed when bandsawing stained wood with a freakin' dull blade from hell. As I couldn't find any reference to said temperature, well I will figure it out myself. This will be a first crappy measure just to check the temperature range (which I expect to be in the 50-300°C at least).

Why bother? Well, as I already said, sanding or sawing xylindein-stained wood can lead to its permanent discoloration, which sucks.

Wood Tool Table Hardwood Hand tool


So the first step to actually measure that destroying temp, is to have a test tube securely clamped in an insulating material to be able to gradually increase its temperature while monitoring the color. Then make a chart of the measurements, graph the heck of it, and determine the decaying function blablabla, to finally get the number of the beast. For now, here is building a test tube wooden clamp with a scrap of palletwood (pine actually) with the detail pictures.

And uh, I can't resist the envy to also post it for Martin's latest contest :D

Cheers!
 

Attachments

#56 ·
determining the temperature of destruction of xylindein

Hey guyzz,

So little time these days with all the work at the university. But I finally settled for a while to build a wooden clamp for test tubes to make a first measurement of the temperature at which xylindein, the pigment produced by Chlorociboriae, permanently loses its color.

As you all know, sanding wood leads to quite high temperatures at the surface, and I had previously noticed that xylindein was destroyed when bandsawing stained wood with a freakin' dull blade from hell. As I couldn't find any reference to said temperature, well I will figure it out myself. This will be a first crappy measure just to check the temperature range (which I expect to be in the 50-300°C at least).

Why bother? Well, as I already said, sanding or sawing xylindein-stained wood can lead to its permanent discoloration, which sucks.

Wood Tool Table Hardwood Hand tool


So the first step to actually measure that destroying temp, is to have a test tube securely clamped in an insulating material to be able to gradually increase its temperature while monitoring the color. Then make a chart of the measurements, graph the heck of it, and determine the decaying function blablabla, to finally get the number of the beast. For now, here is building a test tube wooden clamp with a scrap of palletwood (pine actually) with the detail pictures.

And uh, I can't resist the envy to also post it for Martin's latest contest :D

Cheers!
Interesting.
How do you intend to measure the color ?
A spectrophotometer would be the most accurate but for this kind of job, I guess that a digital camera set to manual and the eyedrop tool in Photoshop/gimp could be enough. I assume that you will throw in a thermocouple in your test tube to monitor the temperature.

Looking forward to your next posts.
 

Attachments

#75 ·
First (preliminary) determination of decay temperature of Xylindein

So here it is: the first attempt at determining the temperature at which the pigment produced by Chlorociboria vanishes.

Rectangle Font Handwriting Line Slope


This is preliminary data (you never stress it enough!), furthermore testing will be needed to assess the exact way it happens within a seriously controlled setup.

The pigment is stable up to 90°C, then it quickly starts to degrade. At around 110°C, half the pigment has lost its color. At 125°C, only 25% of the coloring remains. At 155°C, only 10% of the green is still present.

Please note that the subsequent coloration of the wood due to closed-vase combustion has not been taken into account here, and the temperature growth rate was rather quick (1°C/s) mainly because I used a propane torch (at a distance) to gently heat the test tube, and I didn't want to kill the whole gas bottle.

All in all, xylindein is stable up to 90°C, and quickly loses its color between 95-125°C.
Which would mean that, with my experimental setup, water steam would destroy the color of my wood samples.
Which ultimately means that it might not be a good idea to try to hot-bend or steam-bend xylindein-stained banding for, say, binding a box or a guitar body.

I guess you guys now understand why I was so anxious about getting that information ;)
 

Attachments

#76 ·
First (preliminary) determination of decay temperature of Xylindein

So here it is: the first attempt at determining the temperature at which the pigment produced by Chlorociboria vanishes.

Rectangle Font Handwriting Line Slope


This is preliminary data (you never stress it enough!), furthermore testing will be needed to assess the exact way it happens within a seriously controlled setup.

The pigment is stable up to 90°C, then it quickly starts to degrade. At around 110°C, half the pigment has lost its color. At 125°C, only 25% of the coloring remains. At 155°C, only 10% of the green is still present.

Please note that the subsequent coloration of the wood due to closed-vase combustion has not been taken into account here, and the temperature growth rate was rather quick (1°C/s) mainly because I used a propane torch (at a distance) to gently heat the test tube, and I didn't want to kill the whole gas bottle.

All in all, xylindein is stable up to 90°C, and quickly loses its color between 95-125°C.
Which would mean that, with my experimental setup, water steam would destroy the color of my wood samples.
Which ultimately means that it might not be a good idea to try to hot-bend or steam-bend xylindein-stained banding for, say, binding a box or a guitar body.

I guess you guys now understand why I was so anxious about getting that information ;)
Thomas, The guitar maker shows up. You know, of course that I have wanted to build an acoustic guitar for some time. I can only try to imagine where your mind was headed. Perhaps you can work the spalted wood into the guitar in other ways. I see the scientist and the woodworker working this problem out just fine. I'll be looking for further developments.
 

Attachments

#88 ·
fast-extracted xylindein

Hi guys,

So in an effort to gear up my lab stuff, I recently bought a cheap peristaltic pump on ebay to help extract xylindein faster. Relying on gravity sure works, but it's damn slow. So I filled up a funnel with xylindein-stained sawdust, connected the output to the pump, set the other end of the pump above the funnel for a closed-loop circuit of sorts, dropped enough acetone to soak all the sawdust, and fired the pump for a few minutes. Wow, I gotta tell you, this modus operandi is waay faster than the "wait for it" approach. In a matter of minutes, the acetone was saturated with xylindein, so much so that I had to pump it out into a vial and add fresh acetone to the funnel to continue extracting the pigment. Despite that, the sawdust still remains very green, and it will be good to go for another cycle after it has been very finely ground. I don't have a proper mortar and pestle at the moment, so that will wait.

So there you have it, a better view of what the color of the stains made by Chlorociboria look like in the raw.

Liquid Bottle Drinkware Solution Fluid


Next up: put a few drops of it into an AFM, a few other drops into a transmission spectrometer, and make science with it \m/

Hope you enjoy :) Cheers!
 

Attachments

#89 ·
fast-extracted xylindein

Hi guys,

So in an effort to gear up my lab stuff, I recently bought a cheap peristaltic pump on ebay to help extract xylindein faster. Relying on gravity sure works, but it's damn slow. So I filled up a funnel with xylindein-stained sawdust, connected the output to the pump, set the other end of the pump above the funnel for a closed-loop circuit of sorts, dropped enough acetone to soak all the sawdust, and fired the pump for a few minutes. Wow, I gotta tell you, this modus operandi is waay faster than the "wait for it" approach. In a matter of minutes, the acetone was saturated with xylindein, so much so that I had to pump it out into a vial and add fresh acetone to the funnel to continue extracting the pigment. Despite that, the sawdust still remains very green, and it will be good to go for another cycle after it has been very finely ground. I don't have a proper mortar and pestle at the moment, so that will wait.

So there you have it, a better view of what the color of the stains made by Chlorociboria look like in the raw.

Liquid Bottle Drinkware Solution Fluid


Next up: put a few drops of it into an AFM, a few other drops into a transmission spectrometer, and make science with it \m/

Hope you enjoy :) Cheers!
Are you attempting to do man-made spalting or something? If so, cool!
 

Attachments

#102 ·
STM vs xylindein: STM WINS!

Hi guys.

So, to sum it up, this is Chlorociboria, a.k.a. "the mean tiny hulk":



Making nice things to the wood it lives into (right)

Wood Rectangle Toothbrush holder Cylinder Chair


because of this pigment, the xylindein:

Font Symmetry Pattern Triangle Parallel


Which response to light in the visible spectrum looks like this:

Rectangle Slope Line Plot Font


And whose picture I was (almost certainly) the first to ever take with a Scanning Tunelling Microscope.
Say hello to my little friend:

Textile Grey Pattern Font Wood


Now how cool is that? :)
 

Attachments

#103 ·
STM vs xylindein: STM WINS!

Hi guys.

So, to sum it up, this is Chlorociboria, a.k.a. "the mean tiny hulk":



Making nice things to the wood it lives into (right)

Wood Rectangle Toothbrush holder Cylinder Chair


because of this pigment, the xylindein:

Font Symmetry Pattern Triangle Parallel


Which response to light in the visible spectrum looks like this:

Rectangle Slope Line Plot Font


And whose picture I was (almost certainly) the first to ever take with a Scanning Tunelling Microscope.
Say hello to my little friend:

Textile Grey Pattern Font Wood


Now how cool is that? :)
Fascinating!
 

Attachments

#113 ·
Predashun: I haz it

Or better yet: when the dreaded tree-killing mushroom from hell finds its own slayer.

Food Tableware Ingredient Recipe Wood


These chunks of mushroom flesh (completely dry) are from Fomes Fomentarius, the evil tinder conk, that loves birch to death, literally.

Being a scientific mind in a demented body, I of course cut down a rather big Fomes fruiting body into chunks (secret project) and brought them back to Paris with me. Right now I'm sorting things out here, many will go back to the parents' house, in my shop (or the opposite, maybe).

Sorting and reorganizing my wood I checked out the little cardboard box into which said Fomes pieces were. To my surprise, dusty worm poop came out of it.

Wood Tints and shades Font Soil Art


Okay so I've got some kind of infestation there! Grab a takeaway japanese food plastic container (Mads would yell at me if I called those boxes "bento-to-go"), cue the camera, bring out the big lights, and run it full screen to check out the suckers.

Brown Insect Arthropod Springtail Terrestrial animal

Brown Arthropod Insect Wood Terrestrial animal

Wood Cuisine Circle Metal Natural material

Wood Eyelash Macro photography Pest Pattern


Tiniest. Bugs. Ever. Two to three millimeters. Chewing up one of the most agressive wood chewing fungi.

Food Tableware Ingredient Recipe Cuisine


Wow, I should have filmed that actually. Anyway here are the crappy $0.99 ebay webcam (free postage) pixes I just took. Enjoy!

Cheers
 

Attachments

#114 ·
Predashun: I haz it

Or better yet: when the dreaded tree-killing mushroom from hell finds its own slayer.

Food Tableware Ingredient Recipe Wood


These chunks of mushroom flesh (completely dry) are from Fomes Fomentarius, the evil tinder conk, that loves birch to death, literally.

Being a scientific mind in a demented body, I of course cut down a rather big Fomes fruiting body into chunks (secret project) and brought them back to Paris with me. Right now I'm sorting things out here, many will go back to the parents' house, in my shop (or the opposite, maybe).

Sorting and reorganizing my wood I checked out the little cardboard box into which said Fomes pieces were. To my surprise, dusty worm poop came out of it.

Wood Tints and shades Font Soil Art


Okay so I've got some kind of infestation there! Grab a takeaway japanese food plastic container (Mads would yell at me if I called those boxes "bento-to-go"), cue the camera, bring out the big lights, and run it full screen to check out the suckers.

Brown Insect Arthropod Springtail Terrestrial animal

Brown Arthropod Insect Wood Terrestrial animal

Wood Cuisine Circle Metal Natural material

Wood Eyelash Macro photography Pest Pattern


Tiniest. Bugs. Ever. Two to three millimeters. Chewing up one of the most agressive wood chewing fungi.

Food Tableware Ingredient Recipe Cuisine


Wow, I should have filmed that actually. Anyway here are the crappy $0.99 ebay webcam (free postage) pixes I just took. Enjoy!

Cheers
Looks like the little bugs made a mess of your mushroom slabs. I wonder what sort of secret project you had in mind for that stuff. You're such a nut Thomas. I'll look forward to hearing more about this.

Ken
 

Attachments

#120 ·
Progress on the green elf cup's pigment

Hi Jocks,

Working on and off on that fungus still. There's been considerable progress on the US side since the team led by Dr Spalting nailed down the conditions into which Chlorociboria produces xylindein. Not that I didn't send a hint or two ;)

Since they did the huge work that was needed to understand how this fungus works and how to tame it, I'm the happy bunny who's now tinkering with the pigment's chemical part. Not that I'm a chemist, nananaw, but since I'm in a mixed Masters course now, I study both physics and chemistry (to become a college and high school teacher of both). Which gives me many possibilities to access the chem lab hardware, and most importantly, the experts.

Digging on my own side of the ocean I had one of those "whack own's forehead" moments a few days ago, and made quick tests to check out the reality. Bullseye: xylindein changes color with pH. So my spectra are good to dump and I must do them again. Actually, xylindein is a weak diacid (it can give off two hydrogen atoms per molecule), so it has THREE different colors depending on the pH, and what I took for decay when heated was one of the color changes, which can be reversed in some cases (I'll study that in deep later this year).

So today I set up a side experiment at the lab and made a pre-wash with ethanol to a very decently saturated sample in sawdust and shaving forms (remember, there is no such thing as scrap wood!). Ethanol washes out the tannins in wood (that's true for almost all woods) but not xylindein. Not as much as acetone anyway. As my tests confirmed (more on that later next week) ethanol washes out the tannins, which also have color dependency upon pH, but very little xylindein if any at all. So today was laundry day, and I got my sample cleaned up in preparation for the actual extraction.

Fluid Gas Engineering Machine Science


Cue the Soxhlet apparatus, which is a genius' work. Let me explain how it works.
There is a round flask at the bottom, attached to the Soxhlet apparatus. Said flask is heated by the blue thingie. Inside the Soxhlet you can see a kinda white-ish cylinder of sorts: that's the filter cartridge inside of which the sample is located. The Soxhlet is then filled up with the solvent, almost to the top of the little glass tube that can be seen at the left. The round flask also gets its share of solvent (I used a small one, way too small actually). Then a water-circulating condenser is fitted above the Soxhlet and, well, connected to the tap to have cold water circulating inside.

While heating, the solvent evaporates and travels to the top via the glass tube to the right. It rises up to the condenser, where it cools down, liquifies and drips down into the cartridge. This is pure recondensed solvent, whatever it contained stays inside the round flask at the bottom. Now this is where the magic happens: while the solvent drips down, its level rises inside the Soxhlet. Remember the little tube at the left? That's a siphon. As soon as the solvent level reaches the top of said siphon, WOOSH, gravity takes its duty and everything is sucked down into the round flask, and since this is the solvent that went through the sample, it's loaded with whatever soluble compound is inside the sample. Once all the solvent has been sucked down, the siphoning action stops, the level of liquid inside the Soxhlet starts to rise slowly again, and so on.
No moving parts. No pumps. Only freaking hydrodynamics and gravity. Really clever stuff.

I hope these explanations were simple enough, I also filmed the siphoning action, which happened every twenty minutes (slow, because of the very small round flask, I'll aim for a big one next time).

Check that out:



More after the exams… Cheers from the lab.
 

Attachments

#121 ·
Progress on the green elf cup's pigment

Hi Jocks,

Working on and off on that fungus still. There's been considerable progress on the US side since the team led by Dr Spalting nailed down the conditions into which Chlorociboria produces xylindein. Not that I didn't send a hint or two ;)

Since they did the huge work that was needed to understand how this fungus works and how to tame it, I'm the happy bunny who's now tinkering with the pigment's chemical part. Not that I'm a chemist, nananaw, but since I'm in a mixed Masters course now, I study both physics and chemistry (to become a college and high school teacher of both). Which gives me many possibilities to access the chem lab hardware, and most importantly, the experts.

Digging on my own side of the ocean I had one of those "whack own's forehead" moments a few days ago, and made quick tests to check out the reality. Bullseye: xylindein changes color with pH. So my spectra are good to dump and I must do them again. Actually, xylindein is a weak diacid (it can give off two hydrogen atoms per molecule), so it has THREE different colors depending on the pH, and what I took for decay when heated was one of the color changes, which can be reversed in some cases (I'll study that in deep later this year).

So today I set up a side experiment at the lab and made a pre-wash with ethanol to a very decently saturated sample in sawdust and shaving forms (remember, there is no such thing as scrap wood!). Ethanol washes out the tannins in wood (that's true for almost all woods) but not xylindein. Not as much as acetone anyway. As my tests confirmed (more on that later next week) ethanol washes out the tannins, which also have color dependency upon pH, but very little xylindein if any at all. So today was laundry day, and I got my sample cleaned up in preparation for the actual extraction.

Fluid Gas Engineering Machine Science


Cue the Soxhlet apparatus, which is a genius' work. Let me explain how it works.
There is a round flask at the bottom, attached to the Soxhlet apparatus. Said flask is heated by the blue thingie. Inside the Soxhlet you can see a kinda white-ish cylinder of sorts: that's the filter cartridge inside of which the sample is located. The Soxhlet is then filled up with the solvent, almost to the top of the little glass tube that can be seen at the left. The round flask also gets its share of solvent (I used a small one, way too small actually). Then a water-circulating condenser is fitted above the Soxhlet and, well, connected to the tap to have cold water circulating inside.

While heating, the solvent evaporates and travels to the top via the glass tube to the right. It rises up to the condenser, where it cools down, liquifies and drips down into the cartridge. This is pure recondensed solvent, whatever it contained stays inside the round flask at the bottom. Now this is where the magic happens: while the solvent drips down, its level rises inside the Soxhlet. Remember the little tube at the left? That's a siphon. As soon as the solvent level reaches the top of said siphon, WOOSH, gravity takes its duty and everything is sucked down into the round flask, and since this is the solvent that went through the sample, it's loaded with whatever soluble compound is inside the sample. Once all the solvent has been sucked down, the siphoning action stops, the level of liquid inside the Soxhlet starts to rise slowly again, and so on.
No moving parts. No pumps. Only freaking hydrodynamics and gravity. Really clever stuff.

I hope these explanations were simple enough, I also filmed the siphoning action, which happened every twenty minutes (slow, because of the very small round flask, I'll aim for a big one next time).

Check that out:



More after the exams… Cheers from the lab.
Interesting, Thomas. I'm going to buy myself a glass of wine because I actually understood over half of that.
Two questions arise:
Is "blue thingie" a scientific term that is only used in France? (If so I guess it is likely " chosie bleu" and you have kindly translated it for us)
When do we get to use the dye to get green veneer?

Oh, and a third question, you mention tannins being pH sensitive with respect to color. Is this involved in its blackening when exposed to ferrous ions? Is there a pH related sub-reaction involved there somewhere or is this another phenomenon altogether?
 

Attachments

#127 ·
Essential reading: upcoming book from the scientific authority!



Quick update since I'm short on spare time these days with all the work at the university.

After several years of hard work from a passionate team, here comes the first ever book covering all the aspects of spalted wood (including a few scientific bits from yours truly) spanning from science to art (Krenov, anyone?).

You can order your copy (or your significant other's, if you're in the hunt for the perfect gift) here! 870 pictures spanning across 288 pages, "insanity" in the main author's words ;)

Cheers!
 
#131 ·
Pushing the studies on Chlorociboria to their ultimate goal

Hi guys,

Quick update: I'm pursuing my internship at the C2RMF these days, and we're having a blast preparing the experiments that will conclude all that I did before on the subject. We will experiment the interactions between Chlorociboria-stained wood and the finishes, the products used to remove the finishes (when past restorations occurred), and the new techniques and products that we will devise to get the color back and stabilize it on faded specimens (they were half-way there, which is great).

Believe me, it's amazing to work with the restorers of the French museums, they're a handful of experts of utmost talent and ethics, great company and definitely addicted to what they do! My kind of people.
Oh, and the paintings being restored are on the floor just under. Remember that Da Vinci masterpiece that needs some caring love because it had been overly varnished (15 layers!) a century ago? Well I've seen it just yesterday, up close and personal, with the IR and X-ray pictures, even discussed with the experts about the previous preservation work that had been done on it and the current one.

Good times!

Cheers from the Louvre Museum building!
 
#136 ·
more study results

Hi all,

Long time since the last installment.

So, after using most of my time this year as a teacher, I finally managed to get back to the study with the folks at the C2RMF. Good and bad news : xylindein, the green stain produced by Chlorociboria, doesn't really get on well with most finishes. When it's still in its "raw" form, inside the mycelium of the fungus across the wood fibers, it's less picky but still some finishes won't do the cut and will fade it with no possibility of a return.

Why does it matter? Well, when you're dealing with an historical piece of furniture, the last thing you want is your new varnish to destroy its color. Even for contemporary work, given the work that it takes to cut the veneers and assemble a marquetry, it would be a shame if the finish destroyed the color after a few weeks/months/years.
If you work with green-spalted wood, that is.

Now that the study is done (but not yet published) I can give you all a hint : stay away from petroleum wax, it totally destroys the xylindein in a matter of weeks! Beeswax doesn't cut it a lot more either. Shellac is okay as long as you use the dewaxed blonde version, preferably bleached. More next time!

Cheers
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top