Help turning burls

[Nick Clayton]

I played hooky from work on Monday to do a lumber run and one of the places that I have had never been to before had some burls that I was immediately bitten by. Since I have never turned burls I didn't get anything very large, but I'm now stuck with the problem of how to turn them....
I cleaned up some of the wood to see what was hiding under the bark/wax. For the pictures I simply sprayed them with alcohol and the background wood is Jatoba for those interested in a color reference.
The Mesquite, Pecan and Thuya are dry.
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The Tasmanian Musk and Brown Mallee are coated in wax.
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Don't flame me too badly, but my plans were to section them into smaller pieces to make items I could give as gifts (bottle stoppers, duck calls, x-mas tree ornaments etc).
Because the figure goes in all directions I'm at a loss as to how they should be sliced and mounted. Also is there anything special that needs to be done to the blanks to stabilize them prior to turning so they don't fly apart; wood hardener or some stabilizer? How about filling any checks w/ cyano so that more of the burl could be used.
Any advice, would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[curtis rosche]

cutting them is up to you, if they are completly burls then it doesnt mater how they are cut, because there wont be much difference. i part of them is straight wood, none burl, then i would use that part as a mounting spot. as to stablizing them? i dont really know but i would say that anything that looks like is might come apart might, so go on the safe side and glue is or stablize it, but i'll leave that to some one else to help with, ive never had to do that. for mounting, one thing that is possible is to turn a bunch of 1-2in round waste blocks from something like maple, rough up the block with a couple little very shallow holes or light cuts on the bandsaw, then epoxy them to your peice. this is what i do but others may disagree.

[curtis rosche]

one more thing, for the large peice ing the first picture, i would forget about lttle things, i think that would be a horrible thing to do to such a good peice, you should make some NE blanks out of it, that would look awsome.

[Dick Strauss]

Nick,
IMHO the thuya burl is the only one that lends itself to smaller finished items because of its dimensions. I wouldn't cut the other ones down if at all possible. You may have paid a premium for the larger pieces but didn't realize it. If you post closer pics with better grain details of the items, we can help point you in the right direction.

If the burls are full of eyes and swirling grain, Curtis is right that they can be cut in any direction. However, many burls have a definite grain pattern with curl running across it. The curly pattern should not be confused with actual grain structure and support.

In general bottle stoppers, duck calls, flutes, pens, small boxes, etc, are usually made like spindles with the grain running close to parallel to the bed. Other items like small bowls and dishes are usually made with the grain running across the lathe bed.

[Rich Stewart]

Take a look at Sasha Gasts website. I think those two long burls would be good for that type of thing. Dual shallow bowls. Also for the elongated pieces I saw a desk accessory that had a round calculator on one side and a pen funnel on the other. How big is your lathe?

[Rich Stewart]

I just found it. It is in the Wood Turners Catalog. Look at woodturnerscatalog.com and put "jumbo calculator" in the search function. Has a nice picture of a thing I think would make good use of one of them burls.

[Chris Fierro]

I don't live too far away from you---so I want to know---where'd you find the burls???

[Curt Fuller]

Those are some nice looking pieces of wood. Before you cut them up, take a close look at the grain and see if you'll be able to tell it's there in just a small piece. Take a piece of paper or cardboard and cut a hole the size of what you intend to cut them to. Hold it over the wood and see if it looks good and you still have the beautiful character when just seeing that small amount of the wood.