WHERES THE BURL!!

[MattS]

Now that mushroom season is here, I will be spending some time walking amongst the trees.  Anymore when I am out in the woods I find myself looking for good wood for turning instead of critters.  I kinda have an idea on what to look for as far as burl stuff but I am just not totally sure. 

Correct me if I got this wrong, but basically just look for a tumor coming off a tree or some weird growth???  But I see burl pieces online that look like just a slice of the trunk with no visible deformities from the outside.

I need some learnin here.  How do I find this stuff?

[HaMeR]

Some are obvious growths on the tree & others are a bit more inconspicuous.  Like this one for example.

BTW-- This is not a photo shop job. I took the picture about 40 minutes from my house. 

[Brad H]

This is a Ponderosa Pine burl I cut off a year and a half ago. It was just big enough for two calls. This is where a huge branch was cut or broke off long ago to keep a two track going through the area clear.

The recent results of my first call attempt from this stuff about made me cry, but that's another story for another time.

[THO Game Calls]

I bought some "Museum Grade Maple Burl" from a guy in PA.  He shipped it via Fed Ex - and when it got here, I asked the exact same question?  Where's the Burls?  Seems somewhere between PA and NH, Fed Ex lost all the burl.  They did deliver the maple however LOL.

One other note on the burls beng sold lately - Woodcraft has Big Leaf Maple Burl in their stores - it is marked as Kiln Dried.  On the web site however (Thank You MrPike) it says the wood is green.  It is.  So if you see Big Leaf Maple Burl in a Woodcraft store, be prepared to let it dry for at least a year maybe longer.

Al
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com

[Ladobe]

I guess it can be said that burl is where you find it.   

Burls are usually either aerial or root, although in some species they also form at the base of the trunk.   Personally I prefer the root burls, but they can be very problematic with inclusions in them - hollows, bark, rocks or anything else that happened to be in the area as the burl formed.   Its a sinking sound when your fine carbide saw blade hits a rock or chunk of metal when cutting them up LMTY.    And a lot of cut to size blanks from many species of burl get trashed when you spin them to pattern because a gaping hole or inclusion is discovered.    But the rewards are there if all goes well.   For something as small as calls wood is best shown if both color contrast and figure are on a small scale, and burl fills that bill very well.   Takes very sharp tools and there is a learning curve to spinning them safely.   

I prefer air dried wood over kiln dried, so the wait can be long from green collected wood.   It takes longer for burl to dry than other cuts of wood, and requires a more stringent drying routine done in steps than other wood to assure the most useable wood.   How long depends on where you live, but even here on the arid Mojave Desert it takes at least 3 years for any well figured wood cut into manageable blocks, and I've had some go way more than twice that long before they were dry through.

So if you gents can correctly dry green store bought wood in a year in places like the midwest and New England states, I certainly must be doing something wrong.        :roflmao:

Brad - your making calls out of pine?    :shck:

If I ever get around to digging out, unpacking and setting up the old desk top 'puter I'll pull a few pictures off it to show you gents.   Biggest aerial burl I was ever offered from one of my sawyer friends in the PNW.   Was about the size of a VW Beetle, and weighed 1800 pounds.   

L.

[THO Game Calls]

Are you saying that a 2" maple burl blank is going to take me more than 3 years to dry?

I'll tell you what - that wood will be dry come next December - cause I will stick that stuff in the wood stove first LOL.

Got another way to dry it, but I doubt the store manager there would like it much 

But I have my doubts that it will take that long - I don't know - you have much more experiance at than I do, but I'll put a moisture meter on it in 6 months and see.  I really figure a year to a year and a half at most.  Interesting though.  We will see.

Al
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com

[Brad H]

I attempted that one pine call...because it was burl. I haven't turned a lot of burl, but this piece of pine turned out the prettiest and craziest I'd seen, then the call went into two pieces on the lathe due to a void in the wood.

I should have a small piece left that I intent to make into an open reed distress yet.

Brad

[Ladobe]

I simply stated what I have found to be the norm over about 3 decades of correctly air drying very highly figured wood in the arid southwest.   Any first year sawyer will tell you that highly figured woods (like burl) especially are correctly dried very, very slowly at first, then in a gradually less and less humid environment over time.    In my case I don't limit myself to just 2" "boards", I dry blocks for several good reasons.

Whatever...

[THO Game Calls]

Larry -

Please do not take offense at what I wrote.

First - I do not have access to huge blocks of burl wood

Second - I don;t know any sawyers - first year or any other year

Third - when a guy buys wood from a commercial source, it kind of stinks to find out that he is going to have to let it sit around for 3 years before he can use it.  Especially if they advertise it as dry,

Finally - the blanks I bought were 2" by 8" by 8" bowl blanks.  So I cut them to 2 x 2 x 8" squares.   That is what they are drying as.  You get what you can get when you can get it.

AL
THO Game Calls
www.thogamecalls.com