Large carving from green wood - mold problem

[Dan C]

As described in another post, I'm working on a large mountain man bust carved in green butternut - 22" high and 13" wide. When I'm not carving on it, I keep a plastic bag over it to minimize cracks. Last night, I decided to place a very wet towel over it and then the plastic bag. This morning when I took the bag and towel off, the wet towel had a lot of gray smudges on it that I think is probably mold.

I'm working on the carving pretty much every day, so it's not sitting there covered up for many days, but I'm still a little worried about the mold problem.

Has anyone tried spraying a large piece of green wood like this with a diluted bleach mixture to kill the mold? Would this hurt the wood? Any other options? Thanks!

Dan C.

[Thomp]

i haven't used bleach to stop mold but to stop the progression from the towel into the wood id think the bleach in a mild solution still might lighten the wood but would be better than spotty mildew

[mateo]

Maybe you should just carve it to completion as fast as possible and then finish it with what ever you were going to finish it with.

[Dan C]

Thomp - Yeah, I immediately tossed the towel, and will just put the bag on from now on. I might try the diluted bleach - probably a 1:10 solution in a mister bottle. Still hope to hear from some carvers who might have tried some different things.

Mateo - My plan is to carve it to completion as quickly as possible, but, for me, that will probably mean several weeks. (Hope to get much quicker as time goes on) Right now, carving the beard and mustache the way I want them is giving me fits. I think it will go much more quickly once I get past that. In the meantime, I just want to deal with the mold before it gets down in the wood and causes major problems.

Dan C.

[Dan C]

Just an update:
It's kind of interesting - someone gave this thread a bunch of stars, so I guess that means that at least one person is interested in this topic. There hasn't been much of a response however, so I guess that means that there aren't a lot of answers out there. For those 2 reasons, I thought I'd provide an update.

So far the gray smudges haven't been a problem, but since my carving process is going at a glacial speed, I thought I'd try the 10% bleach solution strategy. I put the solution in a spray bottle, sprayed the carving, and put a bag on it overnight. This morning there were black mold spots on top of the carving where it had never appeared before. So much for that.

Luckily it was in a non-critical area of the carving, so I just carved it off. My expectation was NOT that it would bleach out the gray color from existing mold, but that it would kill all existing mold and thereby stop more from growing. Didn't happen.

I'm now going to do 2 things:
1. Get busy and get the carving done.
2. Try wiping down some areas of the carving with straight bleach to see if that will kill existing mold and thereby keep more from growing.

If it seems like there is interest, I'll provide a couple more updates as time goes on.

Dan C.

[TreeWizard]

Covering the carving just keeps moisture from the wood from evaporating, As a retired arborist when I treated injuries to trees I always had problems with mold it the client wrapped the wound in any way. The aid and sunlight will reduce the chance of mold forming.

[Thomp]

my guess is the bag might have recontaminated the wood if it was the one used with the damp towel,

i live in a near tropical environment here in central Louisiana mold and mildew has always been a problem here i think the spores are in the air year round, any wet wood will mildew then rot fast if left wet. and to the elements,
so we protect the wood outside with thompsons or some other surface coating about every year like for decks, steps and hand rails, but the rot eventually wins out,

if you skip a year or 2 the wood turns nearly black, then its time to wash it with spec tech or bleach mixtures of varying concentration until the black is gone or pressure wash and use thompsons water sealer... but the bleach lightens the wood color as well, it streaks and looks tiger striped in places where the heavier consiontrated mix ran down the wood,

maybe this one should be chocked up to experimentation, maybe try the thompsons or blo to seal it between carving sessions,
but let us all know of the method and results you get...

sorry i cant give you a specific or better answer to your problem, maybe ask a chain saw carver? on their thread?

[Dan C]

Thanks Thomp, I appreciate your reply. Nope, it wasn't the bag. I've been changing the bag fairly frequently to prevent the kind of mold contamination coming from the bag like you mention.

It seems like dampening the piece just brings out the mold, even if it is a 10% bleach solution. The main reason I dampened it this last time with 10% bleach was to slow down the cracking process (which is really minimal so far) till I can get it carved and sealed with a few coats of BLO. There were a few gray spots of mold on a non-critical area that I also wanted to kill. What I did, didn't have the desired effect.

If I get more mold spots, I'm going to try wiping the spots with straight bleach to kill the mold and then leave the bag off till the wood dries. I'm not too worried about changing the color of the wood. I'll be putting on a mixture of natural and dark wax as a final finishing step, and should be able to adjust the color of the wood if there are some light spots.

Again, thanks for your thoughts!

Dan C.

[GaryMc]

Hello Dan, I carved a Indian out of a piece of green Butternut when I went to a Jeff Phares Seminar, He told us to keep our pieces covered 1/2 the day and leave it uncovered 1/2 the day. It worked real well for me. Try it.
GaryMc

[Dan C]

Thanks Gary, that's an excellent thought. I'll give that a try!

Dan C.