# Ambrosia Maple from the Firewood Pile



## Harpazo (Jan 15, 2015)

I've never seen more interesting natural figure in a piece of Ambrosia Maple than the chunk of firewood that almost got burned in the fireplace last year.  

I will be stabilizing this piece when my setup is back in order.  Bottle stopper and pen blanks in its future or maybe some knife scales.  What do you guys think?

There's more from that same log but this piece is what I'm working with at the moment.


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## Edgar (Jan 15, 2015)

Great save from the burn pile!

You are certainly better able to tell how solid the wood is than I can from the photos, but are you sure that it needs stabilizing? I've turned a lot of wood that was much further gone than that seems to be without stabilizing it.


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## Harpazo (Jan 15, 2015)

edohmann said:


> Great save from the burn pile!
> 
> You are certainly better able to tell how solid the wood is than I can from the photos, but are you sure that it needs stabilizing? I've turned a lot of wood that was much further gone than that seems to be without stabilizing it.



Actually, you are right.  This wood is pretty sound.  I do want to observe the process to see what difference there might be.  There are some splinters that need to be super-glued and those sections will probably become cast in Alumilite or PR to fill the concave weathered portions. 

Being new to casting/stabilizing I'm up for just observing the process to understand it.  Sometimes the failures teach as much as the successes.  

This piece of wood has some pretty deep torsional stress cracks, though, that would benefit (I think) from CSM (casting & stabilization methods) so that's the plan.


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