Anybody Like Olive Burl?

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Dec 7, 2008
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I spent the weekend getting my work area cleaned up in between dealing with all the tourists. As I was looking around liking how neat things were looking one of the workers here dumped this stuff on my porch.
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When I asked, what the heck? He said "Harvey thought you'd want this for knife handle wood". This is was a big chunk of olive burl that has been under a tarp for a few years so it could color up a bit.
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Olive burl is a PITA to cut up. The underground burl likes to hide rocks. I usually find them with my saw blade.

If you guys like how this looks I will cut it into handle blocks.
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Let me know what you think. Because if nobody wants some, I have plenty of other work I should be doing.
 
oh please oh please!!!! will it need to be stabilized?... can you cut some of it into scales???
its pretty.....
 
I'd probably do some blocks and I know another guy who probably will.
 
Olive burl, hmmmm. I've been keeping my eye out as I scout around to see what it looks like, but can't promise a purchase.
 
it makes for a ice looking handle i got a log liek a year ago i got alot of use out of it but there were a fair share of cracks i had to cut around
the nice thing is tho i could use the scraps as wood for the smoker
fish smoked over olive is great
 
I started cutting these pieces this afternoon. Now I remember why I don't cut up olive burl very often. ROCKS!

But on the good side. The wood is looking real nice. Cool colors and some have good figure.

I just cut through my 4th rock so I will probably wait to get back to cutting until tomorrow.
 
They will probably shoot me in the morning, but I just moved to a different saw.
This is a piece I just cut. It won't all look like this but there should be some nice blocks come out of these chunks.
o002.jpg
 
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I made a smoking pipe a few years ago from cross-cut olive, it finished an awesome contrasted light green, dark olive color and black when buffed with carnuba wax. It's a pretty durable wood, too...
 
I've used olive burl, and I like the look. I like it to be stabilized. I'd buy some more if I weren't so overstocked on wood.
 
Phil705 said:
I've used olive burl, and I like the look. I like it to be stabilized.
Click to expand...

I used to get this stuff by the ton when we had our retail store in Sacramento. I agree...olive orchard wood can be most unstable stuff I know of. Not to say all of it is, of course. The burl form never seemed to stop cracking when drying it.
 
That is part of the challenge with cutting this wood. You have to map out the cuts to cut out cracked areas and pockets with dirt and rocks. For each block I get I waste about 2 times that amount of wood.

No where near as many cracks as with Madrone, Manzanita or Eucalyptus. I can see how this would never be a wood that would be viable for commercial production. Too much work and too much waste for what you get.

But..... the few good pieces you get after the cutting make it worth the effort in my opinion. At least with this one.
 
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