Ok, here’s the situation.
I picked up a 11′ by 5′ door to a walk in cooler off Craigslist. It’s 70-80 years old. I want to make a farm table out of the wood. The bottom 4 feet was covered with a kick plate of sorts. I removed it and saw black, white, green mold. I was able to unscrew one of the boards, and the back side has mold. For the most part it’s black. I’ve bought 2x stock at HD with the same mold.
Can I clean it up and use it? Or is this dumpster material. It’s pine, if that matters.
BTW the insulation material was crumbled cork, who knew.
Kevin
Replies
eh - cork was a common insulative material of the early 20th century -
you give up on cleaning up your other table?
most likely you can clean the wood using scrub brushes and clorox - I'd seal it with a clear finish then -
but then I live on a farm....
the children all have fully developed immune systems - -
Didn't give up on the other table. tried some steel wool and it works well on the spray paint, but requires alot of elbow grease. I'm probably going to go with some of the other techniques suggested as well. Alot of the white in the pictures was plaster, and came off fairly easily. This door to table was started before I ever found the work table.
Do the clorox thing and scrape and sand. As long as it's not rotten it should do fine. I've made a lot of stuff out of "spalted" maple, pecan, and oak, in other words, mouldy and partially rotted, and they came out fine. Some of the punkier parts might need some epoxy. Once you seal it with poly or cat lacquer, then spores shouldn't be a problem. Wear a mask when you're working with it. Woodturners have died from the effects of mold when turning spalted woods.
The wood appears in good shape otherwise. The inner sides, the part that never saw light, looks like new wood, with the exception of the mold. Is it usually just on the surface or can it get deep into the wood? Planned on working with a mask anyway, but might forget the whole thing if it looks like too much mold once I flip a few more boards. Not worth dying for.
If you can slice a piece off of the end grain, you can see how far the mold has penetrated. If you cut off the oxygen to the organisms, it'll die. Just take normal precautions like a mask when you're sanding and you'll be OK.
I've used punky spalted pecan to make about two dozen clocks and have spent a lot of time planing, sanding, and scraping the stuff, and I'm still alive. Well, mostly...the bionic brain works very well.
Blow yourself off real good with some air so you won't bring it into the house. It's the turners that were exposed for hours w/o masks that had the problems. I gathered a bunch of info for my dermatologist on it, and he put it into some kind of paper for the American Dermitological Society. Did some heavy research on it as I understand. Dr. Michael Jarrett, out of Austin.
Thanks Tom, I'll let you know how it turns out.
Kevin
I know of turners who got sick after turning spalted wood; I wasn't aware that some had died.
Good to know.
IIRC, it may have been over at FWW that I got that info about some deaths from spalted wood dust. Mostly from pneumonia and/or related pleural infections. Might want to do a search over there and see. Seems like it was 4-5 years ago.
There was a lot of adverse reactions to different species of tropical woods, both skin and respiratory.
I stay away from them now. Only use a little Paduk now and then. I stay with Oak, Walnut, Ash, Poplar, pencil Cedar, and Bois'd'Arc.