Sawyers advice

[srhardwoods]

I recently was able to get my hands on a couple large sycamore trees, which I'll be quartersawing. One of them has a large burl on the side, or what appears to be a burl. Small end diameters of the logs are 48", the burl is about 32" long by 40". Looking for advice from sawyers who have sawn burls, and any opinions on do's and don'ts. I've never had the opportunity, out of all the logs I've sawn to cut up a burl. I'm going to start manually quartering the logs this weekend. Thanks

 

[Jeff]

No advice here, but the curious puppy may have a few thoughts.

 

[CrealBilly]

Waiting for someone with more experience than me to respond. If it were mine I think I would cut it off the log by cutting below the burl. That way you would have a slab with the burl attached. Then I would immediately coat all the surfaces (including the slab) with ancorseal and move it to a shady place out of the direct sunlight.

Then I would contact someone like Scott Smith and tell him that I have a live one and see if I could make arrangements with him to have it looked at and possibly sawn.

I've only messed with burl a few times. I quickly came to the conclusion that Burl's are outside of my wheel house. They really need a good study before they are cut. Kind of like a diamond is before it's cut.

Here is a pic of some of the burl I messed with in the past. Look at the slide near the bottom entitled Burls

https://sites.google.com/site/millscustomsawing/logs-to-lumber-1

I'm curious to see what's inside though

 

[Bill Clemmons]

Just wondering if that burl might have more value if left intact and sold to a serious turner? If sawed, I would think in terms of veneer.

 

[srhardwoods]

It's more for personal use then for sale, a friend and I are tackling this one...we just haven't figured out how to saw it up. Usually on large crotch slabs I anchor seal the area and stick stack it in my hay barn where there is reduced air flow and no direct sun light. I'm going to take the chainsaw and rip the log in half, with the burl left in tack on one side and see what it looks like inside. Should get to it in a couple days and will post pictures. Definitely no hurry, ends are sealed with anchorseal now

If the log wasn't 48", I could cut the burl off a few inches down, but I'll have to consider calling Scott or Jack, I believe Jack has woodmizers large 50" bandmill

 

[CrealBilly]

It's more for personal use then for sale, a friend and I are tackling this one...we just haven't figured out how to saw it up. Usually on large crotch slabs I anchor seal the area and stick stack it in my hay barn where there is reduced air flow and no direct sun light. I'm going to take the chainsaw and rip the log in half, with the burl left in tack on one side and see what it looks like inside. Should get to it in a couple days and will post pictures. Definitely no hurry, ends are sealed with anchorseal now

If the log wasn't 48", I could cut the burl off a few inches down, but I'll have to consider calling Scott or Jack, I believe Jack has woodmizers large 50" bandmill

I may have a solution for you.

I've been wanting to make one of these for a long time.

 

[scsmith42]

Hi Chris, what an interesting dilemma!

Normally burls are sliced parallel to the bark; I'm thinking that you may want to position the log and mill the burl off first - perhaps in 2" increments, and then set the 8/4 burl planks aside for air drying. After they are dry you can resaw them into veneer sheets.

As far as the remainder of the log, definitely QS it.

Jack has the Woodmizer 1000 and it is a tremendous band mill. I'm not sure that the max width is but it's on up there, and he is a little closer for you than I am. I can mill up to 72" wide with my home made slabber.

 

[CrealBilly]

Hi Chris, what an interesting dilemma!

Normally burls are sliced parallel to the bark; I'm thinking that you may want to position the log and mill the burl off first - perhaps in 2" increments, and then set the 8/4 burl planks aside for air drying. After they are dry you can resaw them into veneer sheets.

As far as the remainder of the log, definitely QS it.

Jack has the Woodmizer 1000 and it is a tremendous band mill. I'm not sure that the max width is but it's on up there, and he is a little closer for you than I am. I can mill up to 72" wide with my home made slabber.

Woodmizer 1000

"The WM1000 breaks down large logs with a capacity center cut of 67" and uses thin-kerf narrow band blades that measure 2" to 3" wide and provides more material recovery."

http://woodmizer.com/us/IndustrialEquipment/Headrigs/WM1000