# Burl drying



## RedwoodWorkshop

I harvested several burls off a downed tree at my neightbors house who clear cut for a new barn. well he cut down about 40 tree between 3 of them there was 20 burls. I have little experience in drying burl. do I pull the bark off? anchor Seal? any recommendations?

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## NYWoodturner

Anchor seal would be my recommendation. Putting them in your wife's closet would be what I recommend you DON'T do...

Reactions: Agree 5 | Funny 3


----------



## DKMD

I'd seal the cut surface with anchor seal until ready to process or rough turn the wood.

It sure if those are burls or limb scars... either way, there may be some interesting grain.

Reactions: Agree 1 | Way Cool 1


----------



## Schroedc

Agree on anchor seal for the cut face. Also agree on not putting them in with your wife's clothes. She might get ornery about that. Especially if any of them have bugs...

Reactions: Agree 1


----------



## RedwoodWorkshop

Attached is a photo of one I rough turned green then denatured alcohol dried.

I believe it's burl but I'm very new to all of this. what exactily do you mean by process? just cutting into blanks?

Reactions: Like 3 | Thank You! 1 | EyeCandy! 6 | Way Cool 1


----------



## Schroedc

RedwoodWorkshop said:


> Attached is a photo of one I rough turned green then denatured alcohol dried.
> 
> I believe it's burl but I'm very new to all of this. what exactily do you mean by process? just cutting into blanks?
> 
> View attachment 118627



By process he means, turn it into a bowl, cut into blanks, basically do anything other than leave as a whole chunk. Once you start cutting them up, wax the pieces you cut right after cutting. If you aren't going to cut up right away, leaving the bark and just sealing the cut face is fine

Reactions: Agree 3


----------



## Mike1950

Looks like oak. Nice

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## sprucegum

I think it makes some difference what you are planning to use your burls for. I have had pretty good luck processing cherry & maple into peppermill and call size blanks while green, then coating the with anchorseal and allowing them air dry for a year or more in my wood shed. This usually gets them down to 12-15% at this point I put them near my wood burning furnace in the winter for a couple of weeks which will bring them down so low the meter won't read. Occasionally I will ruin one in the final fast dry step but usually it is one that has questionable defects, if this happens they either become stopper blanks or kindling.

Reactions: Informative 1


----------



## RedwoodWorkshop

sprucegum said:


> I think it makes some difference what you are planning to use your burls for. I have had pretty good luck processing cherry & maple into peppermill and call size blanks while green, then coating the with anchorseal and allowing them air dry for a year or more in my wood shed. This usually gets them down to 12-15% at this point I put them near my wood burning furnace in the winter for a couple of weeks which will bring them down so low the meter won't read. Occasionally I will ruin one in the final fast dry step but usually it is one that has questionable defects, if this happens they either become stopper blanks or kindling.



So I want to make a few bowls out of them. I have a bunch of smaller/cuttoff burls I will do the little guys with but I'm hoping there is a way to take a 14inch deep and wide burl and dry it faster than the 5ish years lol! I have heard about boiling. I've used alcohol and it works great but a 55 gallons drum will be expensive.


----------



## sprucegum

RedwoodWorkshop said:


> So I want to make a few bowls out of them. I have a bunch of smaller/cuttoff burls I will do the little guys with but I'm hoping there is a way to take a 14inch deep and wide burl and dry it faster than the 5ish years lol! I have heard about boiling. I've used alcohol and it works great but a 55 gallons drum will be expensive.


Not much of a bowl turner myself I am sure someone can point you in the rite direction. I have read about methods of drying rough turned green bowl blanks that do not involve DNA but all I have read about still take a few months. I know a local bowl turner that turns them green seals them and puts them in his basement for a year then finishes them but I really don't know what the humidity and temperature conditions are there.


----------



## DKMD

Morgan, you could rough turn the burls into bowls leaving the wall thickness at least 10% of the diameter of the bowl(i.e. 1" thick walls on a 10" rough out or 1.5" for a 15" bowl). I'd probably err a little on the thick side with oak since it seems to warp quite a bit. After rough turning, I paint the bowl inside and out with anchorseal and leave them for a year or more to dry. You can weigh the roughouts intermittently until they stop losing weight... that should put them close to EMC for your area.

I messed around with DNA soaks, but I didn't like it. A kiln would speed up drying for the roughouts if you've got access or the itch to build one.

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 3


----------



## Spinartist

Nice bowl!!

Reactions: EyeCandy! 2


----------



## woodtickgreg

I also like to rough turn green wood to the dimensions that doc talked about. Only thing I do different is I put them in a paper bag surrounded by it's own wet shavings. I leave it in the basement for 6 to 12 months to dry. They usually do the typical warping and become egg shaped, then I just put them back on the lathe and turn them to the final size and shape.

Reactions: Agree 1


----------



## RedwoodWorkshop

I'm going to give that a shot. I tried rough turning then alcohol seemed great. I actually turned that bowl to about 3/8 inches then microwaved it because... you know... fast lol. Worked great though I'm not complaining.


----------



## RedwoodWorkshop

Spinartist said:


> Nice bowl!!
> 
> View attachment 118643


 What am I looking at?  looks cool though!


----------



## deltatango

Actually microwave is pretty interesting. One trick is to dry the wood with the microwave on defrost. AThat way it cycles on and off and isn't' so quick and hard on the wood. You can put a cup of water in there with it and will be even more certain about not cracking.The downside to microwave is cell wall collapse. Also, the wood looks forever like it's just been green turned. It will not oxidize like dried wood does. Nuked wood can be cool, and it's a way to get ther quickly. I'd encourage you to keep experimenting with it. You might look into methods of clamping the form to reduce warping. Plastic clamps obviously. You can experiment with boiling, then microwaving, boiling , etc., etc., as well.


----------



## RedwoodWorkshop

deltatango said:


> Actually microwave is pretty interesting. One trick is to dry the wood with the microwave on defrost. AThat way it cycles on and off and isn't' so quick and hard on the wood. You can put a cup of water in there with it and will be even more certain about not cracking.The downside to microwave is cell wall collapse. Also, the wood looks forever like it's just been green turned. It will not oxidize like dried wood does. Nuked wood can be cool, and it's a way to get ther quickly. I'd encourage you to keep experimenting with it. You might look into methods of clamping the form to reduce warping. Plastic clamps obviously. You can experiment with boiling, then microwaving, boiling , etc., etc., as well.



Im curious about boiling but it just worries me for some reason. That being said I will send microwaves through it without fear lol
I will continue to test since I need the dry wood lol


----------



## Mike1950

Guy I got madrone burl from Dealt with a lot of burl. He had a very big tank, full of water and as he sliced the madrone.then immediately put it into the tank of water when it got full of slabs he weighted them down and boiled for 24hrs. then cooled and sent to kiln. Worked on the madrone.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## deltatango

Yeah, and Madrone is tough. Man it cracks. I've seen the water boiling thing work well. Also the microwave. 
Fairly confident in the process but I have a pretty big microwave.


----------



## deltatango

RedwoodWorkshop said:


> Im curious about boiling but it just worries me for some reason. That being said I will send microwaves through it without fear lol
> I will continue to test since I need the dry wood lol



Just to be clear, I am talking about boiling and/or microwaving a roughed out bowl, not a whole burl. A 3/4" - 1" thick wall works well. You're going to get a lot of distortion.
Some people like distortion, in which case, turn the bowl to your finished size and nuke it on defrost.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Mike1950

deltatango said:


> Yeah, and Madrone is tough. Man it cracks. I've seen the water boiling thing work well. Also the microwave.
> Fairly confident in the process but I have a pretty big microwave.



He had it mastered. 3" slabs of burl- crack free. But he cut- covered it to haul and then slabbed it and into the tank. It has to be quick.


----------



## deltatango

Oh yeah - that stuff - the air gets in there and differential drying just goes rampant.

Reactions: Agree 1


----------



## BCBurls

I have 3 arbutus (madrone) slabs (not burl), 10 feet long, 12" wide by 2" thick that I picked up 8 years ago. I air dried them, flipping them (along with a bunch of maple) every 6 months. They're finally inside doing their final acclimation before becoming a table. So far they have dried incredibly straight. I've tried drying madrone before and having it twist and split but (knock on wood) these are doing really well. had I been a burl hunter back then I could have recovered a number of madrone burls as they came from a new subdivision with the largest arbutus and big leaf maple trees I've ever seen... Unfortunately firewood cutters got most of it..


----------



## RedwoodWorkshop

BCBurls said:


> I have 3 arbutus (madrone) slabs (not burl), 10 feet long, 12" wide by 2" thick that I picked up 8 years ago. I air dried them, flipping them (along with a bunch of maple) every 6 months. They're finally inside doing their final acclimation before becoming a table. So far they have dried incredibly straight. I've tried drying madrone before and having it twist and split but (knock on wood) these are doing really well. had I been a burl hunter back then I could have recovered a number of madrone burls as they came from a new subdivision with the largest arbutus and big leaf maple trees I've ever seen... Unfortunately firewood cutters got most of it..



I... I just ... all that poor poor burl


----------

