How to cut a burl into useful pieces???

[ChrisMathes]

I have a nice cherry burl that is still green. Does anyone have any advice, or know of a good resource that can help me with how to cut it up and how to protect it from drying too fast/slow????? I would greatly appreciate ANY help out there....

btw.... I crudely measured the ball with a tape measure. It consumes a 13" section of the trunk and is a complete ball going all the way around. I am also estimating it to be about 13" in diameter across. I measured the circumference with a tape measure and came to 'about' 47"
.

Chris

 

[clowman]

Anyone out there ? Anyone anyone? I would venture start it out on the bandsaw, but have never tried to cut one up myself..

 

[jeff...]

Honestly, I slice em using my band mill while it's still on the log. But I reckon the same could be done with a chainsaw to remove the burl from the tree, then using a band saw to slice it into usable peices. Couple of things you may want to keep in mind. Dry your burl slowly it does weird stuff while it's drying and will split, crack, twist, etc... if you try and force it to dry before it's time. You may also want to overcut your peices considerably at least 1/4" if not 3/8" to allow for shrinkage and pits the develop in the burl. Burl is a differnt beast, takes a lot more work and time dry, hence the reason for the higher price.

This may sound weird, but with burl - I soak the burl slabs in warm water after each cycle in the microwave, this seems to help alot. compared to regualr wood which I only do this the second to last cycle.

Thanks

 

[dozer]

Just cut it up on your band saw into the sizes that you want and buy some anchor seal to put on all the cut or exposed sides of the wood and stack it to let it dry. A food dehydrator works better than a microwave but it is not as quick. Also the make a little pottery oven that looks like a toaster oven that will dry wood pretty quick.

 

[Mike Wilkins]

A lot will depend on what you plan to do with it. For flat work, you first need to establish a flat reference surface. This might mean cutting into the burl and losing part of it to make this flat surface. Then you will have a flat surface to run it through your bandsaw. For turning you could cut into turning blanks like what is sold in the stores(Woodcraft for example) and turn it wet with a thick wall. After drying for a while, you can turn it to your desired shape.
Or you could just send it to me to figure out. You can send it freight collect. Thanks.

 

[Monty]

Yea it depends on what you want to use it for. Cut it in half for two bowl blanks, or cut it into pen blanks or whatever you want. Seal it with anchorseal or any end-grain sealer until you're ready to turn.

 

[ChrisMathes]

Thanks everyone for responding! I took the burl to my BS and sectioned it mostly into some bigger pieces. I gave 1 piece to a friend who introduced me to turning and used that AnchorSeal on the rest. Hopefully, this will buy me some time to decide what I want to make besides pens.


One interesting thing about it...I keep hitting small metal "pellets" so , I think the burl formed from an old shotgun 'wound'

Thanks for your help!
Chris