Remove the Spalted Line on Wood Surface
How to remove the spalt line on the wood surface has drawn our attention recently. Spalt line or zone line is one of the aesthetic pattern on wood surface. Many articles or researches have table the secret recipe in order to promote the spalt line on various wood species. This is really an amazing piece of wood with all beautiful spalt line.
However, there are also some circumstances that require to remove unwanted spalt line. This becomes a real challenge as no ready make cleaner product fulfill this requirement. Under this circumstance, DST has picked up the challenge on formulating an essential wood bleach for this purpose.
Develop a suitable wood bleach product for removing the spalt line.
The Formation of Spalt Line
Spalt line or the zone line is a penetrating black colour line found on the wood. The black colour is caused by the specific fungi group. Perhaps, it is either wood-decay fungi and mold fungi or both. The fungi rapid grow while the moisture and temperature are suitable, mostly Rh at 70% with temperature around 20-26C, individual fungi may have their preferable temperature. We are not going too deep in the formation recipe over here.
The dark line could be understood as the pigment released from the fungi and left on the wood structure. It is some sort of melanin as commonly seen in human skin. Hence, removing the fungi pigment becomes our objective.
The Fungi Pigment
Oxidizing method is the main direction while we deal with removing organic substance. Unfortunately, the melanin polymer resists in oxidation process. Hence, apply oxidation solution on the spalted line yield with limited result. Furthermore, difference melanin stain from individual fungi may requires respective cleaning methodology.
Now we have 2 choices in order to remove the spalt line
- Fungi or mold removal
- Wood bleach
Why Wood Bleach
The 2 part Wood Bleach solution still an effective solution in this application. In order to improve the bleaching effect, we have to establish a suitable process so that the solution could easily react with the spalt line.
Even though the spalt line is hard to remove with standard cleaning or ordinary wood bleach product, but the situation could be improved. DST has worked with our customer to establish a cleaning process and wood bleach product to achieve acceptable result. Contact us for more information.