Oak butt

[kinderscout]

Want to learn something lads what gives the white rot away looking at it ?

[sloth]

White rot is generally pale in colour, hence the name. It rots away the lignin leaving the cellulose, which the wood fibres are made from and which give the wood tensile strength like ropes. So you end up with a paler, soft, stringy rot. At the extreme, you can pull handfulls of soft (sometimes damp) fibrous decayed wood apart.

The opposite to that is brown rot, which unsurprisingly is brown! It does the opposite and rots the cellulose, leaving the lignin, which acts like 'bricks' giving the wood stiffness and compressive strength. So you end up with a dry, crumbly rot like cubes or dust.

Hope that helps! For what it's worth, I can't see white rot there, start of brown if anything...

[se7enthdevil]

is it not brown oak?

 

i need to learn here too. what's the difference between brown or white rot and the beefsteak fungus staining the wood???

[sloth]

Brown oak is the early stages of decay from Fistulina hepatica (beef steak fungus) which is a brown rotter. So the fungal mycelium is present throughout the wood, giving the colour, but decay is minimal and therefore the material properties of the wood are similar to undecayed wood. Don't fell and dry just at the right stage though, and the wood will become brittle, or as above - just a brown crumbling mess! The small window of opportunity is what makes brown oak hard to come by, despite the beef steak fungus being incredibly common on oak.

[se7enthdevil]

so basically if you hit that tree with a hammer and it's hard you can mill it?

[Daniël Bos]

More pics

(Post number two, can't copy the pic on the phone?)

 

In this picture:

 

The brown powdery look of the hinge would indicate rot.

The sort of starry/radiating look is where the timber is affected by the rot.

It's hard to say from a picture just how much it's been affected, but it doesn't look good. Hitting it with a hammer would help assess but hard=good is slightly oversimplified.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Daniël Bos

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

its chicken rot, brown not white, if caught right is o.k

[sloth]

What makes you say that Tony? Not disagreeing or doubting, just curious...