Click, Click, Click...

I dragged home a beautiful piece of spalted (maple?) the other day and finally got it on the lathe. It was really slow going because half of the wood is rotting and therefore less dense and lighter -- which means it'll never spin without wobbling, so you have to keep the speed way down. I didn't know just how far gone the wood was until I got into to.

I also didn't know what else I'd find. If I was paying attention, I would have noticed the tell-tale black area emerging as I took off more and more wood: leaking iron deposits.

But it wasn't until I heard that familiar click, telling me I had hit a nail.

Nice.

So, you stop and drill around it; making sure not to tug too hard on it, lest you loosen the chuck's grip on the bowl. Otherwise, you gotta take more wood off to get the dang thing back in round. I got this nail out in about 15 minutes.

And no sooner had I, when -- click, click, click...

By the time I had roughed out this shallow bowl, I had a whole assortment of shrapnel.

What started out as a quick half hour on the lathe turned into four and a half hours. I wrapped the emerging bowl in a plastic garbage bag between sessions so it wouldn't crack on the lathe.

When I finished roughing it out, I'd found a lot more damage to the wood than I had expected. And it's such a pretty piece, I decided to experiment on it and see if I could bring it back from the dead.

In the past, I usually soaked punky wood in a 4:1 solution of water and your basic 'white' glue. The finish is pretty dull though in the end, so I did a search online to see what others were trying.

I found a fella called The Rot Doctor not to far away. And what does he specialize in? Epoxy for damaged wooden ships. He's perfected an epoxy solution that penetrates rotting wood and within a few days, the resin sets up inside the grain making it as hard as new.

So, after this piece gets to about 20 percent water, I'll soak it for an hour. Until then, it's wrapped up in newspaper on a shelf in the basement. Waiting.