Wood for grips

[paleroadster]

I'm not really a woodworker.  I've done a little cabinet work, made some simple furniture, I would consider myself an moderately advanced DIYer.  I do heat partially with wood.  And I think back on some of the big rock maple burls I cut up with my saw and burned and think I was basically burning off wood that might have been able to pay off my mortgage.  Anyway, I went out to bring in wood this weekend from my oldest pile, and I saw some black birch with great end grain spalting.  I know from history it is likely to run right through.  But these are only about 5" rounds.  Anybody with more wood experience think it's worth ripping them into slabs for grip material, or are they just too small diameter to be worthwhile?  I know they would need epoxy stabilizing, can anyone recommend a good product to do that at home?

I'm just setting them on fire otherwise.

[Deleted]

Probably has a lot of checking throughout. Might get lucky on a few pieces. Grip material is usually harvested and cured in a controlled environment.

[needsmostuff]

You won't know till you look in there.
Worst case scenario? You make a bunch of kindling
Depending on level of spalting it may need stabilizing to be useful.

[contender]

Whatcha got to lose by trying some of it?

[jeffh]

I'm with the others regarding "try it."

I don't think you'll want to just cut a chunk and start carving though - that wood's pretty punky and soft, most of the cell structure has broken down or has been replaced by frass (bug poop), which will have little strength.

Look for "bowl-turning" and/or "wood-stabilizing" on the 'net and you will find a bunch of information on how to take a punky piece of wood into something much more solid and stable with stuff you can buy easily. It may turn out to be more than you're willing to get into, but at lest you'll know. Pretty sure a lot of guys do this with limited shop resources - not requiring much fancy equipment.

I'm always finding chunks of beautiful wood in the wood-pile and setting them aside to make a spoon, knife-handle or revolver grips. That's where the dream ends though, because the time to do it is never available - and it takes me a lot of time, because I'm no expert.

EDIT: DANG!  I didn't scroll down and see the part where you already mentioned stabilizing.  Sorry for the repetition.

I'm still on board with cutting one open and seeing how it looks.