I've been looking at the burls on a large red maple tree for years and it was cut down last year when the property was developed for commercial use. I stopped and asked about it before they got around to cutting it and was told that it was already spoken for and was to be sawed into lumber. It was a big disappointment to see it get sawed up into lumber since the burls would not be used to their fullest as lumber IMHO. I got a call a few weeks ago from the person who ended up with it. He does beautiful, unbelievable flat work, but he felt the same as I and didn't thank that he could use some of the burls as well as a bowl turner and gave me first crack at what he didn't want. Lucky for me he had seen a couple of my pieces before and knew that I turned some. I ended up with 4 nice burls and this one is the first that I've roughed out. It is extremely nice and I will post a picture of it when it is finished. I use the Kobra system to hollow it and have to say that this system is great. It is 12" in dia and about the same in height. Sorry for the picture, but I just set it in the top of a shop vac drum I used to carry the curlies out of the shop at the end of the day.
Jack
Jack