Burl Rough-Out Question

[Dick Rowe]

I have started working on a bunch of burls which have been acquired over the past year or so. I love the way they end up, but am really looking for a better way to get past the initial rough-out phase.

As is the nature of burls these still have a very 'challenging' exterior after bandsawing .. big gnarly knots, chip-outs, and other extremely hard edges to try to get smooth. I have a 5/8" Thompson V bowl gouge and big Monster handle which help, but it can still take 2 hours of getting hammered, even using the lightest of cuts, to get these things relatively smooth and symmetrical.

I'm wondering if there is a better way to speed up the initial roughing process? I have been thinking about clamping the burl to a work surface somehow and going at it with a bench grinder and some very rough cutting wheel to get the worst parts roughed down, but I am not sure if that is the best way to go about it.

How can I safely speed up this process, or do I just bite the bullet and keep at it the way I have been?

Below is a (poor) picture of the last few I have done. It is worth the effort in the end, but I have a pile of maybe 30 left to start and just want to save some wear-and-tear on my old body!

[John Keeton]

Dick, you are a lucky man to have 30 of those problems!!!:D I find most domestic burl quite easy to turn - what species are the burls you have? I take it that they are dry, but that 5/8" Thompson should tame them rather quickly.

Can you post a pic of two or three of the rough burls? Perhaps your angle of attack is a bit off?

[Roger Chandler]

I do it pretty much the way you have been.........I figure I will get more control with a burl mounted on the lathe than trying to get at it with an angle grinder...........still going to get showered with bark, chips and the stress on the wrists will be worse in my opinion with the grinder than on the lathe...........

[Steve Schlumpf]

Dick - I do all my rough-outs straight from the chainsaw to the lathe. You do get bounced around a little but just have to be patient. I also use a 3/4" Thompson V with a Monster handle on the really nasty ones. All my Monster handles have either BBs or lead shot in them for ballast and to help reduce vibration. It does make a difference.

[Dick Rowe]

Thanks for the replies. I am lucky to have a friend with a large sawmill in northern Wisconsin who saves all the useable burls for me as they are cut. Before I met him he was running the burl stuff through his chipper with other sawmill scraps! I actually get more than the burl, I also get a thin slice of the outside of the log they are on. I have attached a picture which shows a small representation of what they look like when I pick them up.

Those which I have been turning have been sitting in my basement for over a year and are bone dry, and are usually poplar, maple, cherry or white pine. I have a new pile which are still semi-green. I was wondering if rough turning them green would be easier or would it cause warping issues down the road. Everything I have turned to date has been real dry and some of those outside knots are rock hard.

I guess I will keep doing it the way I have been, but I like the suggestion of filling the handle with lead shot. I might mention that I am doing these on a Delta 46-460 mini lathe (which I love), but it just doesn't have the mass needed to form a real steady foundation for these large 'gobs' of wood. I am a relatively new (self-taught) bowl turner, so my angle of attack may be an issue. I am basically following the info I gleaned from the Bill Grumbine videos.

[Bill Hensley]

This question is timely. I recently worked a piece of cherry burl that was the hardest wood I've ever tackled. My gouges had little effect so I went at it with a 5/16 HSS cutter in a Monster handle. I slowly whittled it into shape with that.

So for roughing burls and really hard wood is something like the Easy Wood Rougher or a carbide tipped tool a good alternative?

[James Combs]

In my experience(limited as it is) I would think rough turning them green would be the easiest. Being burls they shouldn't move all that much and if you rough turn to a thickness of no less then 10% of final diameter even if they move a little you should be able turn it out.

[John Keeton]

Dick, do you own a bandsaw? I nearly always cut mine in a round just a bit larger than my intended form. Then, with the burl surface on the drive center, I form a tenon on the flat area, and as much as possible, take off some waste to begin forming the piece. As soon as I get any unsteadiness or slippage, I turn the piece and chuck it.

Nice pile of burls!!

[Mark Levitski]

Dick,

I turn a lot of burl, mostly cherry and maple. I turn green and attempt as much natural edge as I an get, which complicates the effort by trying to save bark. I do use the chainsaw to get it as round as I can, but then I also sometimes take some of the jutting corners off with an Arbortech mini (one can also use a regular angle grinder with a carbide Saburr Tooth type wheel or the larger Arbortech cutter. Sometimes I do this while the piece is mounted on the lathe, as I re-orient it as I go.

As Steve says, until it gets into round it can be a battle, and it does indeed require patience. The patience in its major form comes in letting the cutting edge go through space and not wood/bark. While you do this, the feeling of the tool changes as well as the sounds coming from it. However, you must not move the tool due to these inputs. Just "pretend" you are cutting all wood. If you do respond and unduly move the tool even a little, it will only bounce around more. Sometimes I need to take a break from these NE forms that have wings and space in them. A vacation as it were, and a retreat into a "normal" bowl! :)

Good luck with it. Where are you? I am near Antigo if you ever want to stop by.

Mark

[David E Keller]

Pre-rounding on the band saw is quite helpful. Sharp, heavy tools and light cuts helps. Speed really helps, but there are limits to what is safe and comfortable. If you're not trying to keep the bark, removing as much as possible before turning will help... Bark can/will take the edge off a tool pretty fast.

I've got a carbide rougher, and it is quite helpful at times. Seems like some woods and burls prefer the rougher to the gouge... I find myself using the rougher less and less, so it may just be my inexperience with the gouge. For very hard burls like Australian red mallee, I find the rougher is just easier since those woods scrape so well.

Sounds like you've got a great setup with your source! Green wood is definitely easier to turn, but you may wish to twice turn if you don't want warped and wrinkled pieces. My experience has been that maple burl dries relatively quickly while cherry takes a bit longer and is more apt to crack. Poplar and pine burls are not familiar to me, so I hope you'll show some of your finished work.

[Baxter Smith]

Great looking bowls and burls. If you know exactly how you are going to orient when mounting, shaving off high spots with the chainsaw can save you some abuse.

[Dick Rowe]

John, I do use a bandsaw to pre-round the blank. I then will put on a faceplate and turn a tenon on the back side. The issue for me are the large bumps, knots, etc that you encounter while cutting the tenon and truing the sides. After it is relatively true, it becomes almost like non-burl bowl turning. The issue is getting past the rock-hard 'warts' on the blank while turning.

Mark, I'm in Wausau .. we are neighbors! I go through Bryant to get to my burl 'stash' near Crandon. I have a healthy respect (fear?) for my chain saw and only use it to get the blanks bandsaw ready. I would be too nervous trying to do any shaping with a chain saw. Too many Darwin Awards are given out for that kind of activity!