Hatcher's Studio 2022 #2
 

I am picking up from the Hatcher's Studio 2022 thread on what happened to the Maple pieces I brought out of my wood on this little expedition:

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The smaller piece on the left is a sampling from branch that from the fungus I predicted would be spalted:

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It yielded a bunch of little plates like this one:

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They are OK but I think I'll let the rest of that branch sit for another year and then try again

The bigger piece came from further up the same branch:

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I split this one in half and sliced one half up:

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I should say, especially with Maple, I find it is much easier to slice the wood when it is still wet for a number of reasons: One, is it is harder to burn wet wood. Two, The grain in wet wood doesn't pull the saw blade as much when it is dry. Three, It takes a lot less time to dry stickered slices.

Here is a book matched pair:

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So I'm pretty happy with the results so far and am looking forward to taking on that big Wild Black Cherry standing dead wood trunk!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c89ba565_c.jpg

m

Looks like the "All trees must fall" guy would be happy with your new location, looks like a lot of work to be done.

Bruce,

:) That’s funny you remember that Swifty Corwin quote I had on my signature for awhile. I do want to make one little correction that his quote is actually a little more passive: All trees fall.

Thanks!
Mark

Blue Stain
 

I addition to these foraged woods I cut the largest piece of Blue Stain Pine I could find. I sliced it up and stickered it:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b667966f_c.jpg

Once dried I stabilized it and bookmatched a couple thinner slices as a candidate rosette:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c293c72e_c.jpg

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It will be going onto the torified Maple Dryad I have in the works. I will be adding very thin cross grained spalted Sugar Maple rings and purfling line to finish it up.
Here is a mock-up:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5832e27f_c.jpg

I'm pretty sure this Blue Stain Pine will be showing up in a number of future guitars!

M

Very cool, Mark--that's some of the most dramatic blue stain pine I've ever seen!

Around these parts we get more of a gray-blue coloring on our blue stain.

Yours is way cooler--looks awesome in the rosette.

Timing is everything when you get into the line-up for a custom Hatcher guitar. I love my turquoise and torrefied maple (and very beautiful cedar), but now there’s this blue pine that’s stunning! Can’t wait to see the coming creations!

Mark, that blue stain pine is CRAZY! I love it! What a cool and natural rosette! Can't wait to see that one complete!

Pretty nice when you're a fine woodworker and check out your new backyard and there's a big chunk of this laying around, eh!

https://i.imgur.com/wRxaHGZ.jpg

Thanks Nemoman, We only have five common species of Pine up here and the best color seems to come from the Eastern White Pine. You guys in California have something like 27 species of Pine and up in Northern California you certainly have the right temperatures and humidity for Blue Stain so maybe it's just a matter of finding the right species?

Thanks canuck7! Yeah, I'm always chasing the next shiny thing and making it into a guitar. :)

Thanks Treenewt. Thanks! It is important to me to stick with natural colors. When you really start looking there really aren't any colors you can't find in nature.
When you find a fallen Pine log that even has blue fungus growing out of it's side you know it is likely going to be a real treat!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...bc0bcfb0_c.jpg


Foraging woods here in the Green Mountains is a real treat!

Thanks,
m

So cool, Mark. My monitor doesn't do the colors justice compared to seeing it in your studio. I wonder what that would look like partnered up with some redwood and desert ironwood... :cool:

I think it would go wonderfully. Instead of the spalted Maple cross grain rings, Goncalo Alves would tie everything in very well.

m

Blue stained pine is a new one on me very cool . We have a bunch (too much really ) Beatle kill pine that has slight blueish gray striations but nothing that dark or deep blue.

..as those spalted woods are colored because of funghi - and those funghi eat wood - are the spalted parts treated by drying only or i.e. by also soaking them in resin when built into a guitar, in order to prevent the funghi from eating the other wood ? .. or do they live on a say Maple or Pine only diet and are endemic to those woods ?
Maybe a stupid question, but funghi spores are quite resilient and survive quite hostile (i.e. dry, hot..) conditions very well if I remember correctly... just wondering.

Thanks for commenting KevWind. There are a lot of blue stain fungus species and they do not all have common ancestors. What I see here in the Green Mountains consistently is this dark blue-green color and only seems to grow on the abundant Eastern White Pines.

I should start with saying Blue Stain is a fungus (think mushroom) not a mold (think that unidentifiable hairy thing in the back of your refrigerator). While mold is listed as a sub-family of fungus it is very different from the other fungi species.
Molds tend to break wood down much faster than the other fungi.

Blue Stain spores are transmitted on the bodies of the bark beetles that KevWind was mentioning above. The ideal conditions for Blue Stain are temperatures between 50f and 65f degrees and the moisture content should be a little higher than the normal living wood average. These are the conditions my woods have at 1,100 feet up and densely shaded with regular rain, mist and fog.

Drying out the wood quickly dispatches the fungus and stabilizing the wood (I use CA) not only strengthens the wood but also takes care of any wayward spores. So there really is no possibility that the fungi will spread on a finished guitar even if it were made of Eastern White Pine.

Thanks Mark !