One of the most common questions to pop into my inbox is “Is this spalting?”  Most of the time, the answer if actually “no!”. While there are many other ways to get a natural color on wood, only spalting is ‘contagious’.  This means that if you have a little, you could eventually have a lot more.  For me, this is what makes spalting such a dynamic technique: its repeatable, containable and free!

So what isn’t spalting?  Let’s take a look at my favorite examples:

These are shots of a boxelder bowl I turned earlier this year.  At first glance, you immediately noticed the bold red/pink color.  It looks pretty plausible for spalting until you notice where the coloring occurs.  A closer inspection reveals the big clue: the ‘spalting’ occurs around a knot or other defect.  The conclusion: NOT spalting!  Boxelder trees produce this red/pink color in response to wounding.  No fungus or beetle is involved.  So if you’re machining boxelder for inoculation into a spalting bin, your results will be less than fantastic.

Now lets compare the boxelder bowl to what pink stain spalting actually looks like:

The pink stain fungus Arthrographis cuboidea is a very weak fungus.  Often it can only color wood after several other fungi have already colonized the piece.  If you see pink stain on top of a bleached area, chances are you have real spalting.  If you’re interested in learning about the specifics of boxelder red stain, you might try reading this article.

Finally, lets look at some of the softer hardwoods, specifically aspen and basswood:

The green lines in most of the softer hardwood species can fade to brown upon direct UV exposure (sunlight), and are another example of tree response.  While they may provide a striking contrast to the white wood, they are not spalting.

Often the host response line with ‘control’ spalting.  You might have noticed that the blue stain on the basswood vase stops right at the green host response line.  This is a fairly common phenomenon, and can be an excellent clue as to wether you have green zone lines (from a fungus) or green host response lines (from the tree).

Seri