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"Ink stain" on oak


spandit
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50 minutes ago, spandit said:

Tree surgeon who cut it down didn't mention finding any metal. Seems odd that it's vertical - I've seen plenty of fence wire embedded in trees - or is it the tannins travelling up the grain from one particular spot?

Sometimes the metal has been in so long and been eaten away so much by the tannins and other chemicals that occur in oak that there's very little left! the staining could be carried up the wood by water/sap movement in the tree.

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the staining from iron in oak will travel several metres up the trunk.  As said above, tannic acid in the oak reacting with the iron, its why you don't use steel screws/ironmongery on oak products, only brass.

 

I had an oak in my garden, about 20" diameter, when felled the tree surgeon (poor sod) found a horseshoe completely swallowed at ground level.  he knew it was there though, the staining went a couple of metres up the trunk.

 

zone 3 London and a horse shoe in the middle of a tree....a reminder I guess that when the tree was small it was farmland

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Just now, spandit said:

Thanks for all your replies, glad to know it's not some horrific fungus that is going to eat my log pile. Thinking about it you can make ink from oak galls and iron, so this actually is an ink stain!

Older inks had a good content of Iron in which remains when the rest of the ink degrades. This is why the writing on old documents appears brown/rust coloured rather than blue/black.

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