briar burl

[curtis rosche]

has any one ever turned briar burl?

[laurie sullivan]

Yes, I have......IMO......nothing to write home about and expensive for the size of you can get. I bought a couple of pieces on ebay and they were very green and dried up too small for a double pen kit and I've seen better looking wood.

Laurie

[curtis rosche]

i saw a huge one when i searched google, it was like 33 pounds, 2-3x the size of a basket ball. 192$

[Don Eddard]

Must be pretty light wood. Seems just about any solid wood 2 to 3x a basketball would weigh 100 pounds or more.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Yes I have turned it and like Laurie said nothing to write home about. Very light wood and I won't turn it again. It is not worth the price they ask for it.

[curtis rosche]

ok, i saw a show on history where they were making pipes, so i figured that it might look good, thanks for the help.

[Paul Douglass]

Will I just keep on learning. As a former pipe smoker, I always thought Briar was a very heavy, dense, hard wood. I would have thought it would make some beautiful turnings. Live, read and learn!

[Steve Trauthwein]

Hello All,

Briar Burl can be beautiful if you get the right wood. It is the root ball of the white heath bush that is only found in the mediterranean. The reason for the expense is each piece has to be located, dug and dried. It is graded and the higher grades are beautiful. It is tight grained and easy to turn but not available in large sizes. Nice novelty for people who sell pens.

Regards, Steve

[Anthony Penchetta]

Brairwood can realy be outstanding. But it is one of those woods, you have to be there to pick it out yourself "cherry picking" I buy mine at www.pipemakers.org (http://www.pipemakers.org) they have a bunch of it in all grades, but the key is to wet the wood so you can see the grain, they have spray bottles of water on their racks for this purpose.

Another thing to consider, briar has sand pits, so it is not uncommon to be turning a beautiful piece of brair and hit one :eek: