It's surprising what you can find in firewood
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All winter long, I’ve been burning these beech logs. Because of obvious spalting marks, I rescued some. Yesterday I opened one of them up (with a band saw). Now I wish I hadn’t burnt any of them. I aim to do the projects one by one in order. The clock and the carrying tote are done, so this will be the wood for a dovetail box, I hope.
Does anyone know where that blue-green colour comes from? It reminds me of copper sulphate.
And is wood like this, clearly in the first stages of decay, likely to be unsound structurally?Manxman living in France
Paul, those soon to be boards are going to be beautiful. I would really look at edge jointing them to make some nice book matched panels for cabinet doors and such.
Structurally they should be okay for furniture, boxes etc. if not, you can always make new pieces 🙂
-Canada
Yes Dave there would have been some nice bookmatches in there, I’ll try that next time. For now I wanted to go ahead with a box. Here’s how it turned out. The wood was a bit wormy in places, and unevenly textured in the heavily spalted areas but otherwise sound enough to work. I liked the curve of the bark edge, so kept that for the top and base. This was my first attempt at dovetails, and they are very gappy in places with one complete disaster where I cut out recesses on the wrong side of the line. But all the spalting lines distract attention from my mistakes 🙂 This was a lot of fun and I’m very grateful to Paul and this site for making it possible. At the moment the finish is just shellac – going to cut it back with wax tomorrow. Also need to get some hinges.
Manxman living in France
I really wish I had some of that firewood….
Thats a really nice looking box. Keep that box, gaps, errant cuts and all because in a year your going to look back at it and be amazed at how far you have come with your joinery. I still have my first box, gaps and all, I made a special goop out of sawdust and glue to use as filler lol
I think that green is caused either by the insects themselves or fungus that takes hold after the bugs.
-Canada
That is a nice box. The spalted wood lends a look of art to it. Dovetails get better with repetition. No other way to get there. Again, good looking box, well done.
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What a very unusual looking box. I like it a lot can hardly notice joinery defects.
Keep up the good work looking forward to your next project.Dagenham, Essex, England
Love the look of the box! The spalting is really dramatic and like the others have said, imperfections lend character as well as giving you reference on the development of your skills.
Pretty sure *everyone* would say much the same thing about their first dovetails…I know I would.
My first Dovetails look a lot worse… Practice practice practice! It’s fun!
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
It is amazing sometime what you can find in the firewood pile..
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
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