Timoho (Kleinhovia hospita L)

A. G. Maisey · 25th September 2008, 11:31 PM

Well Fearn, if you're going to try this, I strongly suggest that you do it somewhere other than Indonesia.

Amongst the people who work with this wood there are two opinions as to the cause of the dark spots:- probably the greater number of people believe that at some time the tree has been damaged, perhaps by a cut, or something else that has caused a wound, and that before the injury has healed, water containing lime has entered the wound. The second group of people believe it is a sickness that can affect any number of trees and plants, nobody gets specific about what sort of sickness.

Many years ago I read an opinion somewhere that it was caused by fungus.

I'd never heard the term "spalting" before I read it here, so I've checked it out. From what I read, spalted wood seems to be quite a bit different to timoho with dark patches. I can recall several wrongkos I have worked on where the wood in the black patch was considerably harder than the surrounding wood, which is the opposite of what people tell us spalted wood is like.

25th September 2008, 11:31 PM	#21
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,894	Well Fearn, if you're going to try this, I strongly suggest that you do it somewhere other than Indonesia. Amongst the people who work with this wood there are two opinions as to the cause of the dark spots:- probably the greater number of people believe that at some time the tree has been damaged, perhaps by a cut, or something else that has caused a wound, and that before the injury has healed, water containing lime has entered the wound. The second group of people believe it is a sickness that can affect any number of trees and plants, nobody gets specific about what sort of sickness. Many years ago I read an opinion somewhere that it was caused by fungus. I'd never heard the term "spalting" before I read it here, so I've checked it out. From what I read, spalted wood seems to be quite a bit different to timoho with dark patches. I can recall several wrongkos I have worked on where the wood in the black patch was considerably harder than the surrounding wood, which is the opposite of what people tell us spalted wood is like.