WIP - Trash or Treasure?

Burl Source

Burl Source

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This thread will be a work in progress.

The photos show a piece of redwood burl we traded for yesterday. A customer came in and wanted us to do a sculptural carving for them. This piece of wood was something they had stored for quite a few years but it wasn't going to be suitable for the project they had in mind. My boss called me over to ask if I thought it would be good knife handle wood. I said I think so. So the customer traded this piece for a portion of the cost of what we are making for them. I hope it turns out to be good wood because my boss gave a lot for it.

We really won't know whether it will be trash or treasure until I start cutting it up. Here are a couple photos showing what I will be working with.

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It is really old and crusty looking. I am sure at least half will be waste, but here is what really caught my eye.

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The outer surface shows small pins all over packed together real tight. That usually gives a good indication of what you will find inside. Looks to me like there will be lots of small eyes with figure like webbing around the eyes. ......or not.

My two concerns are; checks on the cut side (how deep will they go) and bug holes in the sapwood (will they be only in the sapwood or....?)

My guess is that we will find treasure.
But how much?
 
I couldn't help but cut off a piece last night for a quick look. I cut off a 10 inch piece from one end. It felt heavy so I weighed the piece. 16 pounds. Much heavier than I expected.
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The good news, bug holes are only in the sapwood and the surface checks are less than 1/2 inch deep. Now it's time to do more cutting to see how it looks.
 
For the next step I made a freehand cut to divide the piece in half. I followed the grain lengthwise to get 2 pieces to work from.
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Next I cut a 2 inch wide strip from one of the halves. My goal here is to cut a strip that will be perfectly quartersawn. This will affect how the grain is oriented along the top and bottom of the block as you will see soon.
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This is the 2 inch wide slab I just cut. I laid it in it's side and marked how I want to make my next cut. By following the grain for this cut the blocks will be flat sawn on the faces and quartersawn on the top and bottom edges.
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Now double checking the cut I see the grain is oriented like I wanted.
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Even the grain on the ends looks good.
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Next step is to take this 2 inch thick piece and cut off strips 1&1/4 inches wide.
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Now I turn them on their sides to see what the face of these blocks will look like.
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I think they are looking really good. Just what I was hoping for. Now it's time to trim and sand a couple blocks to see exactly what we have here.
 
Next step I true up the blocks with my drum sander. This makes it so the blocks are flat and will have even thickness and width.
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The drum sander has 36 grit paper so I can use it like a planer but no tear out.

After that I go to my stationary belt sander. With a 120 grit belt I clean up the blocks a little more.
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Now that the block is a little cleaner I spray it with a light coat of aerosol lacquer. This way I can see what the figure is like without wetting the wood. It also gives the wood a little extra protection until it gets used.
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One of the things about this burl that I really like is how much figure there is in a small area. Looks a lot like Thuya Burl to me.
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Later I will try to get a few better photos indoors. I'll also get weight and dimensions so we can calculate the density of this burl.

So far I know it is harder, heavier and a lot nicer than normal redwood burl. Once in a while we get lucky and someone pulls out a piece of the old stuff that they have had stashed for a long time. I think we got real lucky with this piece. As for the question "Trash or Treasure" I vote treasure. I will be saving as much of this for myself as I can get away with.
 
SCORE!!!!!! Thats super fine!
Thats a sick piece of burl wood you have there..

send a slab this way and let me make sure its as awesome as it looks! lol
 
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Thanks for the WIP,ya don't see it from your end that often.
Good score on that burl,it looks to yield a small gold-mine!
 
Burl Source said:
I will be saving as much of this for myself as I can get away with.
Click to expand...

Hey Mark,

Sure, sure. Get us all excited about the sweet stuff, then tell us you're keeping it for yourself. You're one smooth peddler dude. Next thing you know we'll all be trying to outbid each other for the crumbs.

Thanks for showing us the process. It is a GREAT help and always of benefit!

All the best, Phil
 
Farmer Phil said:
Hey Mark,

Sure, sure. Get us all excited about the sweet stuff, then tell us you're keeping it for yourself. You're one smooth peddler dude. Next thing you know we'll all be trying to outbid each other for the crumbs.

Thanks for showing us the process. It is a GREAT help and always of benefit!

All the best, Phil
Click to expand...

Look who's talking. You always manage to get some of the good stuff. Don't worry, I'll set some of this aside for you whenever you're ready.

I was a little worried about this piece. When my boss asked if I thought it would good knife handle wood and I said yes, it was like I was vouching for something when I was just guessing. Next thing I know he was giving more than double what I would have guessed it would be worth. This is one of those situations where if things didn't turn out good it would have been my fault.

When I had that piece of 40s redwood I started by stashing some for myself. As time went by people kept asking for more and before you know it all I had left was some of the cut offs. This time I am going to make a box of blocks for myself and take them home.

Cutting this I am going to take my time and make sure every piece is cut just right. No telling when I'll be able to find something like this again.
 
Wow, Mark, I think you found a gold mine. That is beautiful wood - it reminded me of Thuya Burl, also. Denny
 
You can get a lot of variations with redwood but the small contrasting eyes in this piece made me think of Thuya burl. I like this burl.
 
Killer score, Mark! Definitely a treasure. I know your standards are very high so that says a LOT. I don't blame you for keeping some for yourself.
 
I was curious how this would look with a finish. I started by sanding to 400 grit and then a CA glue finish since that would dry fast. Being a holiday weekend we have lots of tourists here today. I was pulled away several times so there are runs and dust in the finish. This is the world's worst finish but the wood still looks pretty good.

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That there is some nice thuya!
Found out something interesting about thuya:


When it comes to Thuya Burl, the revered wood of Morocco, the "eyes" clearly have it. Clusters of small black dots, or "bird's eyes," often accentuate this handsome wood.

Indigenous to the hot, dry region of the western Mediterranean, Thuya Burls actually grow underground on the roots of Tetraclinis articulata trees. One of the few conifers able to coppice (sprout new shoots from the stumps of trees that were cut down, burned in fires, or eaten away by livestock), old Tetraclinis articulata trees, having sprouted repeatedly over the years, oftentimes grow very large burls — some weighing up to 1,000 lbs. Exactly how these burls were first discovered — particularly in Morocco, where most of the trees (or stumps of trees) are located in the Atlas Mountains and the burls must first be unearthed and then carried down the mountains on donkeyback — can only be imagined. It's easy to understand, though, why Thuya Burl is considered something of a national treasure in Morocco.
 
Ironwolf,
I am afraid I may have misled you when I said it looks like thuya burl in an earlier post.

This is redwood burl. ...........not your normal redwood burl though. You can get a lot of variations with redwood burl giving a lot of different looks, colors and density. This is some of the denser stuff.

When I go to the knife shows it never fails that someone will pick up a block of redwood burl and want to argue with me when I tell them it's redwood. Some will look like thuya, some amboyna and some .....?

I always win the arguement when I explain that I was the one who collected it and cut it up. One of these days I should do a thread that shows the different variations I have cut.
 
Holy...
No,you didn't mislead me,
I mislead me huh1...
You were typing too fast,and well,I'm a lil' slow ya know ;)

That's incredible redwood buddy,
I've yet to use any,but man oh man it looks like thuya
(not that I'm even close to being an expert;I compared your pics to some pics of thuya,and I couldn't really tell the diff!)
 
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