Cherry Burl - What do I do now?

Ok, I discarded one of them, it was more a branch than a burls and very rotted.
The other 2 look very promising. I did my best to get all the rot from the burls but ti's not easy because of their shape.
I will seal them like suggested with varnish or paint. Wax is too complicated, I am not equipped for that.

My question is this: Is there are critters left in the wood from the rot, will they eventually die if I seal the wood of just live in there until I am left with a nice varnished ball of sawdust?

Thanks again for your help.

Patrice
 
Update.

I coated the burls with some leftover water based varnish I had. 5 or 6 coats of it. As much as I could get in the cracks. Now they will sit in my private wood kiln (read backyard shed) for a couple of years or until my patience ran s out and I cut them up. I will update this thread then for folks who are interested by the results.

The only thing that scares me is that I found some little white worms in one of them and some fine wood powder. I have no idea if they eat only rotted wood or if they will eat all the burl from the inside. We'll see.

Patrice
 
Patrice, you should heat them up to 150 f for a while(couple hours depending on size) to kill all the fungus and hopefully any bugs inside them, after that you can let them dry naturally.
 
This might be to late but if you get a fresh burl then be all means possible keep the bark on even if it is rotten the rotting will stop when it dries anyways. and from the day it is cut down/off the tree it came from let it lay out side for 3days in the shadow if it is hot cover it in some old leaves or something, and then get some paraffin wax or some old candles and melt them and brush a thick layer on all open ends, that way it will dry slowly true the bark and will not crack (normally not that is) and then put it in a cool place like a old cold stall of basement and cover it in hay and let it stay there 2-3 years and then on a cold winter day take it to the "addict" (place just under the roof???) or any other place that gets really hot in the summers and let it stay there until the summer fades and it start to get cooler and then it is ready and you can cut in up and let the small pieces dry in "indoor room temp" for a half year before use and you can then sent off to stabilising if needed a lot of the times if the wood if soft then just shape the handle and put in in very hot linseed oil and let it stay there for some time and then let it cool of and dry up and it will be hard enough for rough usage

but if it is really big burls you can split them and also cover the clean wood surface with wax


wax can be melted in a old kitchen pod/pot over an open fire or forge and a old big/clean paint brush can be used to paint it on.

i have used this way for some years now and have ATM over 8 different big burls on the way in this long process.

DC
 
Thanks DC, very good info for the next ones.

Luke, that is good to know but sadly there is no way my wife will let me use the oven for this. :(

Patrice
 
Patrice,

Have you thought of hitting a few woodworker sites?

It takes about a year per inch of thickness to air dry wood. It doesn't take long to get most of the water out. Weigh the pieces and do it again in a couple of months, then again every month. The weight loss will taper off. While you are waiting, figure out how you want to cut them. The burls are shoots gone crazy growing perpendicular to the surface... there is a normal tree in there somewhere. The point being, to get what most want in a burl pattern (the rings, dots, etc.) the cut needs to be perpendicular to the burl growth... like a slab cut off the side parallel to the length of the trunk section. If cut croswise, the length of the shoots are exposed... with lines like what most briarwood smoking pipes look like.

When the wood has lost the majority of it's moisture and you know how you want to cut it, make it into oversized handle blocks (cut for slabs later). Re wax, varnish, anchorseal (all surfaces for burls and other wild grained woods, ends for others) and leave in stable atmosphere, 1 year per inch. Ways to create stabile atmosphere easily is wrap in multiple layers of newspaper and keep it in a closed cardboard box. Woodworkers with room would put the pieces in crate-like boxes filled with wood shavings. The point is creating a slow moisture movement environment... no change extremes. Making smaller pieces will shorten drying time.

Wild Cherry (Black Cherry) is famous for check cracking. Some might cut the burled pieces in half down the centerline of the log and seal. Some might go to quarters. Doing this cuts down on the number of directions the wood wants to go and it is commonly done on fragile, brittle, very dense woods... snakewood, ebonies, African blackwood.

Last thing, though it doesn't really pertain to knife handle wood, there is a difference between drying and aging. Good gunstock blanks (3"-7" wide x 3" thick x 34" long) would not be used before they had been setting for years past the 1 year per inch drying time. Aging makes the wood more stable.

Mike
 
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Thanks Mike, I'll follow your instructions.

I am guessing a bandsaw is a must here. I have a metal cutting one but it is too small and pretty slow of course. While it dries I'll have time to save the money for one. The thing is I don't have that much space left in the shop. :(

I looked a little at woodworking websites but I don't like woodworking that much past what I need for knives and most of the stuff I found I thought was too complicated for this. Your instructions are simple and to the point.

Thanks again.

Patrice
 
Damn, I hope this stuff gets out of its diapers and come of age before you shuffle off to Buffalo!
 
Find some anchor seal, coat the entire burl, then daye it and set ir aside for several years. The rule of thumb is 1 year for every inch of thickness, but length will shorten that. If you can kiln dry it, fine, but otherwise just be really patient for the best results.

Quick dry methods, other than kiln drying, prodice lots of crack and checks. If the wood is spalting, stabilizing fixes that.

If anchorseal isn't available, try a paper bag in a cool dark place. The bag will breathe, but slow down the drying process to avoid cracks.

Gene
 
Patrice Lemée;6764853 said:
I am getting more and more American. :D

Patrice
Click to expand...

Oh, god, don't do that Patrice... you are just dandy the way you are!

Mike

Edit: PS... When you are weighing, you don't need to unwrap as long as your first weights were taken with the wrapping. And looking around on woodworker sites for drying info should get a person some ideas of percentage weight loss for time drying at different stages... like if you get wood and don't know when it was cut... wood species is going to effect this. The water loss over time will get you a relative number to use for time. That's more important to keep a person from cutting too soon.

And just so you've heard it, there is a whole science used by woodworkers in the turning trade. A lot of them use green wood and deal with it in very specific ways. The process used dramatically cuts down on wood loss to checking/cracking and probably has application to knifemaker wood use.
 
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Wow Mike, this sounds much more complicated than I thought. :confused:
I think I'll follow your advice and do some more research on this.

Thanks

Patrice
 
Patrice Lemée;6767390 said:
Wow Mike, this sounds much more complicated than I thought. :confused:
I think I'll follow your advice and do some more research on this.

Thanks

Patrice
Click to expand...

It's not really... not unless you want to push margins or you need to do odd stuff like the turners are. To keep it simple, just let it dry slowly and more than enough. If you want or need to push margins, you have got to be data specific for species and end use.

Really, the only thing that will cause problems with the pieces you have is drying them totally in the form you have them in now, then cutting for immediate use. When big pieces are cut, the smaller pieces have unequal moisture to some extent and there will be unequal pressures in the piece's structure the cutting released... they will nearly always move a little. It's not like there is a high chance of cracking and checking at this point as long as the pieces are dry enough when cut... I wrap individual pieces in newspaper, too.

The thing I mentioned about letting most of the moisture go out and then cutting to oversized pieces... besides getting the moisture down quicker, this will make the time the small pieces need to stabilize in their form. Me, if I was looking to make slabs out of an oversized piece, I would let the slab pieces set a while after they were cut, too.

Last thing... if a person collects enough wood, the time it takes to get around to using it is usually more than the time it takes for the wood to dry/age enough to be useable... =]

Mike

Edit: Almost forgot, Patrice... there are metal cutting blades with low numbers of teeth per inch (6-8). They cut wood fine enough... yeah, it's slow and the tooth/gullet design isn't ideal for wood, but it works well enough on an occasional basis.
 
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Mike, the thing is my bandsaw is a 4X6. Big enough for cutting blocks once they are sized down some but not for the initial cutting of the burls.

Patrice
 
Patrice Lemée;6768183 said:
Mike, the thing is my bandsaw is a 4X6. Big enough for cutting blocks once they are sized down some but not for the initial cutting of the burls.

Patrice
Click to expand...

Years ago I was allowed to use the local high school's bandsaw on an occasional basis. Is something like that a possibility for you?

Mike
 
I am afraid that they don't include shop courses anymore. Actually I think that we never had those courses at least to the extent that you guys have in the states. I would have loved those. :(
But I'll ask around just the same. There is also a woodworking school not too far so I'll try with them, maybe they don't charge too much.

Thanks for the sugestion.

Patrice
 
Patrice Lemée;6768311 said:
I am afraid that they don't include shop courses anymore. Actually I think that we never had those courses at least to the extent that you guys have in the states. I would have loved those. :(
But I'll ask around just the same. There is also a woodworking school not too far so I'll try with them, maybe they don't charge too much.

Thanks for the sugestion.

Patrice
Click to expand...

My woodwork class (I am in grade 12) has a big bandsaw that could be used for that, I am not sure but it is 18" minimum. The school on the other side of town just got a bandsaw mill and has been cranking out nice lumber (lucky :)) Too bad you live so far away!
 
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