Burls

A

Andrew H

Member
Before I get to the meat of my post, let me just say how much I have enjoyed reading the posts and viewing the pictures that are posted here. I was directed to this forum several months ago regarding a question I had on a boat blind. Since then, I have been a regular visitor to the site and would like to become a regular participant. I especially enjoy getting a glimpse into the lives of folks all over the country. This forum is one of the few gems of the internet.

I am new to wood working and decoy carving, but I found two burls recently and was curious about harvesting them. The first burl is quite large.

LargeBurl.jpg


The second is much smaller.

SmallBurl.jpg


They are on separate trees (if you look at the background, left side, of the picture of the small burl, you can see the large one), but are of the same species of tree. Here is a picture of a leaf for identification.

Leaf.jpg


Both are fairly remote, and I do not have a good way of getting them to the road. Is it possible to literally cut them off of the tree, or do I need to take the entire section of the tree to which they are attached?

Is there a particular time of the year that I should harvest them?

I am open to any and all advice.

Thanks in advance!
 
Thanks Brad. Since beech is a very hard wood, probably best not try to create any bowls or tables out of the burls.
 
If you are going to harvest them. A good time would be late fall after the leaves have fallen. The best time would be January. I don't know what part of the country you are in so that depends.

As long as you are at it you might as well take the rest of the tree for lumber. Being remote the best way would be a chain saw mill. I will show you mine but best to goggle up chainsaw mills. A good one is the Grandberg mill. Mine is a modified mill for cutting lumber quartersawn A link to the site where I got the idea for mine Bill's Wood Creations, Mini-Mill Modifications for Quartersawing Lumber
He lists the reasons for quarter sawn over flat sawn.

View attachment _IGP0766 chainsaw mill.jpg

View attachment _IGP0766 chainsaw mill.jpgView attachment _IGP0768chainsaw mill 2.jpg

Besides a chainsaw you need a riping chain to cut lumber thats different than the normal cross cutting chain. Also the biggest chainsaw you can get it takes a little wheatees to cut lumber. If your strong like a bull I suppose you could carry the logs out on your shoulders like Paul used to do in Wis. You heard about Paul... All us old fellows have.
 
Andrew,
There is a guy who lives not too far from me and he takes all the burls I can find when I am cutting firewood. He prefers them green because he can create some of the prettiest bowls you would ever want to see. The wood is tamarisk and is extremely dense and hard.
I have seen a lot of beautiful duck calls made out of burls, also.
Al
 
Pete - Thanks for the information. I don't think my 160 lb frame will be shouldering too many logs though! I wish I had a blue ox to do the work for me. I will have to figure something out.

Al - I may try to take the small one and see what I can do with it; then decide on the big one. Also, thank you for sharing life in the desert with us. I am facinated by your pictures - especially of your duck hole with beautiful mountains in the background. Quite a bit different than what we see in VA. Please keep them coming.
 
Andrew, some guys will leave the tree, and just cut off as much fo the burl as they dare, the tree usually does fine. Beech may or may not have a really exciting burl, then again, you never know until you check. Each one of them are different.
 
If your strong like a bull I suppose you could carry the logs out on your shoulders like Paul used to do in Wis. You heard about Paul... All us old fellows have.
Click to expand...
Pete - Everyone knows Paul was a Michigander...Babe had a cousin in Wisconsin though


Andrew - Heres a burl project I made few years ago...and the picture does not show how beautiful that wood was

Thats about a 200lb maple burl stump table. I used crushed turquoise in Varathane to give that natural "stream-like" waterfall feature the blue color

View attachment burlstump5a.jpg
 
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Thanks Brad. Since beech is a very hard wood, probably best not try to create any bowls or tables out of the burls.
Click to expand...
Cut it let it dry and have some ducks calls made. A burl like that is a call makers dream. I know a few if you need a contact, shoot me a PM.
 
Scott - Somehow I ran across your old posts on burls, which is what got me thinking about these two burls. Those pieces you did turned out beautiful. Great work.

Now I need to find a way to get them out of the woods. I can't imagine what the big one would weigh.
 
I wouldn't bother trying to make boards out of beech. It is a dense wood that cuts hard, works poorly, and is a royal pain to dry without cracking, though the wood can be fairly pretty. The main reason that beech isn't typically a commercially available hardwood is the poor drying characteristics. It makes good heavy planks if you arn't too concerned about checking, but it is a heavy wood and isn't nearly as rot resistant as oak.
Beech is very common here in Vermont, but 99% of the beech cut goes into firewood or pulp, even the nice looking logs.
I would just cut the tree and roll the burls out of the woods leaving the rest of the tree in the woods unless you can harvest it for firewood! We typically make bowls from green wood then do our best to dry them slowly. I've never tried making beech bowls, and I don't think I've ever seen one, but I'll bet they are very tough to dry without cracking.

Good luck! Mike
 
I haven't done any in a while, but in school we were making 12" bowls pretty regularly and were knocking out rough 8 inch bowls in half an hour! My largest was 16 inches finished. It was possible to turn bigger, but I didn't have access to any larger chunks of clear wood at the time. Cherry and maple worked out best as they dried most calmly. When I was logging full time, I would sell big maple burls to a guy for 40 a piece. One maple burl was tremendous and he claims to have turned an 18 inch bowl out of it. Be careful with burls as pockets of rot or weak seams can cause the things to explode off the lathe.

best luck!
 
I don't know how this wood compares to ash but I use a lot of ash burls for making handles on fishing rods. The wood is hard but the burls turn down really nicely and they are beautiful
 
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