question about Catulpa wood

[llc1952]

I'm doing a carving out of Catulpa (sorry about the spelling) and there are several nickel size spots that seem sorta mushy.
The rest of the wood is very hard. Is there anything I need to do to help this or is it just a characteristic of the wood?

[Robson Valley]

Are the mushy spots in the surface/sap wood? Western red cedar logs do that if the bark has been on the downed log for very long = rot. Nickle sized, colorless and maybe 1/4 - 3/8" deep. Can't see it until I cut into it. Thread = Cleaning Wood
Had to knock all the sapwood off and start over. Now, the cleaning process is #1.

[Donna_T]

MHO is that it depends! If it's the wood between grain, and its just softer and easier to carve, I've found that to be a natural of cured catalpa. However, I've had some catalpa in the shed for several years and when carved, found spots that were mealy or like pressed sawdust. That's when I found "bugs" infesting the wood. I stopped carving and "baked" the wood to kill out the bugs.
Donna_T

[Robson Valley]

If we slide into winter quite slowly, the bark beetles can generate their own antifreeze and they survive to kill more trees next summer. The dispersal flights of Mountain Pine Beetle were so huge, that it looked like heavy rain on Doppler-shift radar!
What they can't cope with is sudden change or extreme (-40F cold). So. Into the deepfreeze (-20), out into the shop (65F) for a day. Back into the freezer, etc, etc. Just fine.
After I get the bark off and skin off the sapwood, I have a far better idea if I have something useful or I "overhaul" it
Haul it out into the back yard and throw it over the fence for the neighbor to burn next summer in his fire pit.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Have heard its pretty good carving wood, have never had any tho nor tried it.

[Robson Valley]

Wood density/hardness:
There are two different species of Catalpa in North America:
Catalpa speciosa is Northern Catalpa
Catalpa bignonioides is Southern Catalpa.

Each annual growth ring consists of early wood/spring wood, formed in the early part of the growing season, The late wood/summer wood is much denser (more cell wall, less open volume). If the summer wood finishes fast the change is abrupt from one growth ring into the next. The differing densities are hard to carve. Douglas-fir and Rainbow Western Red Cedar just grow like that.

Lots of carvers here claim that basswood (Tilia) grown in the north, is far better carving wood than basswood from the south. Possibly some weather/water/climate similarities????

If those spots are just soft punky and not actually packed sawdust, I'm still guessing fungus rot.

[llc1952]

Okay. That helps quite a lot. It was a roughout I purchased from an individual. It is carvable for what I want to do. Just a little aggravating trying to carve out the softer spots. Looks like I'll have to do a little finagling with this piece. Appreciate the info!