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carving burls

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fobeknat

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Was given a beautiful red birch burl that I want to use for a noggin. I plan on burning out the bowl most of the way and carving to finish. The burl has started to check and while reading about Swedish Kuksas it mentioned that the burl for these is soaked in salt water for several weeks so the cup/bowl does not crack. My question - how should I prepare the burl for use? Let it dry then carve around any checks, carve green then slow dry, soak in salt water then carve, or . . ? Look forward to any advice you guys can offer.

Forest (yes that's my real name :grin: )
 
Hate to say it but I think I would let it dry for few years before I messed with it.

If its green...
 
forest said:
My question - how should I prepare the burl for use? Let it dry then carve around any checks, carve green then slow dry, soak in salt water then carve, or . . ? Look forward to any advice you guys can offer.

Forest (yes that's my real name :grin: )

Forest,

As an avid woodturner, I reduce splitting in one of several ways ... you can soak it in denatured alcohol for a couple of days, then take it out and let it dry, or, you can soak it in a 50/50 mix of dish washing liquid/water for several days then let it dry. The third method, if it is starting to split, is to soak it in a mix of 50/50 water and white glue. The glue dries clear when it's finished and it holds the loose fibers together. It works great on burls for turning, so it should for carving also. Good luck.

Ron
 
Thanks for the advice! I know a guy who turns bowls from burls and he coats the end cuts with some sort of rubber cement looking stuff and lets them dry for ever. I don't want to invest in any new goop right now and I have less patience than Roy :wink: The end check is not too bad right now, so I will probably try the dishwashing liquid solution. Any particular brand or type you would recommend??
Thanks to both of you guys!! :bow:
 
Keep it in the freezer while you're deciding what to do.
Might have to eat those half-gallons of ice cream, but oh well,.......
 
Soaking wood in water to cure it... :rotf:
Don't let the wives tales lead you too far astray.

Turning/carving green wood will lead to checking, cracking, warping, etc as the finished product dries - period, and may also cause finish flaws. Bowl turners get away with it somewhat by turning to over-sized bowl dimensions to remove some excess wood (which helps make drying time shorter), then cure before turning out the flaws to final dimensions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - depends on the wood, the starting moisture content and the methods they use. But they still have to cure the wood eventually to prevent later wood or finish flaws from cropping up in the finished product.

Properly curing wood is basically the REMOVAL of most of the moisture from the cells of the wood using methods that help prevent (or lessen) checks, cracks, draw or deterioration of the wood as it dries.

All wood (especially burl) needs to be dried slowly and thoroughly over a period of time to be stable and long lasting (how long determined by the starting moisture content, block size and environment it is cured in). Even here in the arid southwest, it has taken anywhere from 3-12 years for some of my hardwood blocks to air dry to an acceptable moisture level for turning/carving to a stable finished product. In your cooler/wetter NE location the time would be much longer with like woods. I prefer air dried wood, but curing can be shortened by kiln or hot house drying... fairly quick with the first if you have a kiln, 2-3 years on average with the latter. But you still have to be patient.

There are products sold that replace the water in wood cells by soaking the wood in it, then drying. Helps cut down on drying time, but these products are costly and do not work at all on some tight celled hardwoods and burls. Wood stabilization with a non-water based product is even better, especially if done under pressure and heat. But this process is also expensive and only maginally successful with most of the hardwood burls because of the haphazard alignment of the cells in burls. So soaking in water (even mixed with some other product) is counter productive IMO, will not be long lasting and does not remove the need to still thoroughly cure the wood.

FWIW, I have actively turned/carved regional and exotic hardwood/burls for nearly 5 decades, including as a business for many years. I imported my woods from around the world and cured them myself (mostly air dried, but also some hot house and a very little in kilns). I built my own wood stabilizing set up, but only used it on certain wood species and seldom on burls.

Anyway, hopefully some food for thought to help your project turn out well enough to still be around for a few dozen generations.
 
All of my scoutmaster carried noggins and we showed others what we did. We worked the burl green but when Not working on them place them in a sealed plastic sack. I never heard of anyone having a problem cracking. Some used a salad bowl
finish others used vegatable oil. Carried mine for years and ate/drank evrything from it. I have seen everthing from oak, maple, hickory to cedar used, I was surprised by the cedar. Don't know if this will help.
 
I'm not an advocate and haven't tried it myself, but a friend told me this yesterday:

We are in a particularly wet climate and drying can take forever. So he dries burls in his microwave. Evidently 30 seconds at a pop, more or less depending whether anything starts smoking. I didn't bother to ask how long it took him, but the results (birch) spoke for themselves.

Anyone else ever try it?
 
i am a greenwood worker. contrary to much of the above info., i carve green burls all the time--with great sucess. in a properly carved burl noggin the only end grain is around the lip of the bowl. a noggin taken down right away to shape and left will dry without problem. i do all but the final surface preperation when i get the burl from the tree. then i know right away if there are any suprises on the inside--such as voids and inclusions(they happen a lot with maple burls, not so much with spruce, etc.) the wood then needs some drying to be able to work up a proper final surface.

most cracked noggins i have seen were constructed from straight-grained wood and could have been anticipated easily. i believe that is why burls were so often used instead of straight wood. my favorate thing to do is get straight-grained burls(they are very hard to find--most burls are highly figured) and carve to their natural shape following a growth layer over the entire surface. my own personal noggin is an "eggshell" of just three growth layers of a maple burl. there is no 'figure', but the noggin is light as a feather, very strong, and crack-free. i sawed it from the tree and carved it all in the same day.

however, you stated that it was starting to check. that being true, it could well be too late to use greenwood methods as the fracture lines may have already been established.

good luck, and don't be afraid to experiment-"everything has a half-life and we only go round once".

take care, daniel
 
Thanks for all the info from all you guys. If I have learned anything it is that different methods will work if care is taken to not allow the wood to dry too fast. Perhaps if I can figure out how to post a pic of the burl in question it would help narrow the advice.
Has anyone else heard of soaking in salt water as the kuksa are? I know that is not just an old wives tale as the Sammi have been doing it for centuries and have special "ceremonies" to rinse the salt out using lots of cognac :nono:
Anyway, I will try to post some pics and see if I can manage not to ruin this burl.
 
I've carved a few burls , one was douglas fir and the other cascara . Other burl wood I've worked with was bigleaf maple and red cedar. I've made many spoons from many types of wood over the years too.

Burl wood dries very hard so I work it green , you can sink it in bucket of water between working sessions or for long periods of time - just change the water now and then , maybe add a few drops of dishwashing detergent.

When finished your carving I'd just keep it at room temperature away from the sun or heat source . Thin wood dries fast without checking.

A long ( several months ) soaking in salt water will eventually displace most or all the natural resin in the wood ( depending on thickness , species and time )and the wood will dry out faster with less or no checking , depending how you dry it. I air dry all my wood.

That is my experience.
 
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