green burls

[David Wilhelm]

I'm getting ready to harvest several green and maybe a few dead standing and precut burls. In the past I cut them up and have sealed or turned them. With the numbers I'll be getting I'm not sure what I'll do as of yet. My question is can I just saw long on each end and store them in the barn unsealed or should I seal all of them? I'm not thinking the burl itself would crack or split but just can't answer this one with out help. I've got a green maple that i've had cut for 3months unsealed and I've left it outside in the weather it's huge the ends are over 24" long and just now starting to crack. Wishing now I would have sealed it and wrapped it in plastic and stored it in the barn. I may seal one end and plant the other in teh ground for a month. Any ideas ???

[curtis rosche]

you could leave the ends long, you could cut them to size and see if they crack, you cuold seal them, or you could cover them with a cloth or paper towl and put water on it every couple days or once a week. another thing to try would be to seal one end and put the other in dna,, who knows it might dry it out with out the split

[Barbara Gill]

Several burls should not take too long to rough turn. I have had good luck with sealing the cut surfaces with AnchorSeal and keeping the burls in a cool place out of the sun. The bark on the uncut surfaces should protect for a reasonable length of time. I certainly would not wrap in plastic.

[David Wilhelm]

Why not wrap the maple in plastic? It's about eh size of a 25 inch TV. you never know what the inside of a burl will offer. I'd love to have zone line fungi thrown in with what ever else i find. It will be a while before i cut into any of these burls. perhaps next winter. I just have to take them now the land went up for sale and I've got 57 acers to cut what I want from. 15 feet into the land and I've got 7 burls flagged plus and ton of spalted beech and other wood.

[Ben Gastfriend]

Wrapping in plastic gives mixed results. You leave it in for just long enough, you get some nice spalting. Too long and you've got a rotten punky mess.

[Barbara Gill]

As Ben said, if you are not real attentive you will end up with a mess. It would be a real shame to have burled wood rot. In NC as in VA the heat and humidity can make short work of plastic wrapped wood even when it is in a barn.

[Steve Schlumpf]

David - sounds like you will have your hands full cutting and storing all the wood. If you want the wood to last - you will have to seal it. If you wanted to play games with plastic and a couple of pieces to see if you can get spalt - go for it - but I would have all the wood sealed so that it will still be usuable when you are ready to turn it.

[David Wilhelm]

Yep Steve cup is running over right now for sure. I'm still working on a controlled spalting environment when BAM i was hit with a ton of wood. I've got all this Green sycamoore and i'm spalting it outside with oak leaves and top soil. Now I've got this land that is covered with burls. Free for the taking. :) The only one I'm interesting in spalting is the maple. a burl isnt' something you can just cut open and look at LOL. I think i will resaw one end and seal it and plant the other in the ground and bag the thing for a few months and keep a check of it's temp and weight. I'll just need to treat the ground around it. I'd hate for the termites to make a meal out of it before my bowl gouge does.