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Make the most of your burl
- michael_forrest 2y agoThis is an absolute masterclass in remote presentation. Cindy does incredible work.
- ggm 2y agoOnce in high school woodwork class I had to make an artificial burl out of scraps to try and show off some wood turning fu I didn't actually have. Open day does that: look like you know what you're doing. Eric Sloane would have loved this, it's a true reverence for wood.
- csours 2y agoI spent a week burl hunting with my uncle in Alaska. Good times! (except for the mosquitos)
- Loughla 2y agoI used to find burls with a neighbor. He was an amazing wood turner. He told me to do it for extra money, so one summer I went off on my own to start cutting them. And that's the story of how I learned that sometimes burls form when a tree grows around a fence post. Alternate title: Stihl chainsaws can't cut steel fencing.
- _heimdall 2y agoWe have quite a few nice looking burls on our property and its the exact same story. Most of them are old fence lines where someone decided attaching barbed wife directly to gum and hickory trees was a good idea.
- rolph 2y agoi use a metal detector. some of these trees can be a stash[cashe] and you may encounter things hidden long ago, most of them not good for your chain, some of them not good for you.
- quercusa 2y agoThere's that ever-so short moment between "Man, this wood is hard!" and "Oh, crap"
- eitally 2y agoI highly recommend this National Geographic series, Filthy Riches. It has an episode about "burl hunters". https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3654672/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3654672/
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- NoboruWataya 2y agoWonderfully early 00s-style website.
- echelon 2y agoI can't watch the video, so I had to look this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burl Woodworking with these. In a previous life I did genetic engineering with agrobacterium-mediated transfection. Agro causes galls. Good blast from the past.
- onionisafruit 2y agoI didn’t know what it was (clicked thinking it was curl related). Thanks for the link, it was an interesting read.
- Lammy 2y agoI learned that word from Mastodon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMeAEBujd7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMeAEBujd7w
- jumploops 2y agoThis is awesome. My wife wanted a wooden engagement ring, and so I fashioned one (well ~10) out of a Pacific madrone burl. Great material to work with, but wouldn’t recommend wooden bands unless your actual wedding is near!
- vvvv 2y agoWhy not?
- jpollock 2y agoFingers change size, but wooden rings can't be stretched.
- aziaziazi 2y agoThey can be sanded, just get a thick ring!
- jpollock 2y agoYes, but that's generally not something you want to be doing the week before a wedding. It's _very_ easy to forget to do, and hard for the best man to run around and fix while you panic. I had enough trouble SHINING MY SHOES. :)
- jumploops 2y agoUnless you use an epoxy of some sort, they’re quite prone to breaking over time — I only used natural beeswax. (Plus, quite a few broke while I was iterating on my technique…) To be clear, this is one of the reasons my then-girlfriend wanted one, to ensure a speedy engagement!
- bradly 2y agoIf they are made by cutting a ring shape out of wood, the grain is too weak for long term wear. I more common method for wooden rings is to cut a long thin rip at 1/16th”. Soak it water for 30 minutes. Wrap it around something finger size, put a rubber band around it and let it dry. You can get a good imitation of a glossy epoxy finish with CA/super glue. This gives a lot more strength than a cutout.
- aczerepinski 2y agoI adore burl. Burl coffee tables, cell phone cases, jewelry boxes, guitars, you name it. I should start taking classes now so that I’ll be ready to pivot to woodworking when AI replaces engineers.
- dyauspitr 2y agoHa it’s already a severely impacted field. Every other computer programmer that doesn’t live in a city is a woodworker.
- fragmede 2y agosounds like there's a market for a woodshop in the city, gym membership style.
- senderista 2y agoThere's already one in Seattle: https://www.isgoodwoodworks.com/ https://www.isgoodwoodworks.com/
- op00to 2y agoIsn’t that what maker spaces are?
- pimlottc 2y agoMaker spaces tend to focus on high-tech tools, like 3D printers, laser cutters, electronic cutters (cricut/silhouette), etc. Some also have woodshops but that's less common and typically requires more space.
- jspash 2y agoIn the UK there are maker spaces of all varieties. But you are right, woodworking spaces need room for the equipment. If you are a hand-tool only woodworker, then there isn't really a need to use someone else's (unsharpened) tools. I'd love to see a site like this for the US, Canada and/or Europe. https://openworkshopnetwork.com/ https://openworkshopnetwork.com/
- toolslive 2y agoBuck eye burl tops are quite common in custom shop guitars and basses.
- shermantanktop 2y agoIt’s essentially thick veneer. Veneer gets a bad rap but it’s a great way to make highly-figured wood available to as many people as possible. And since burl and spalted woods are often unstable or have big pits or cracks, it’s a good way to avoid structural problems.
- ejs 2y agoThis is great. I used to avoid burl when I would make wood rings [1]. It's just very hard to predict how it'll behave if you try to steam bend it. [1] https://woodaround.com https://woodaround.com
- aaronblohowiak 2y agowhy'd you stop?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- abeppu 2y agoSo the works Cindy displays are beautiful but is wood turning the way to "make the most of your burl"? I feel like there's a value that's related the surface area you can get out of a given burl. If you have a burl, are you better off trying to cut thin panels with parallel slices? With turning, though a skilled artisan can produce a beautiful result, don't you lose out on a lot of volume?
- MarkMarine 2y agoIt is really really difficult to make any thing from a burl that is within the range of a hobbyist that isn’t turned. The grain is impossible, and they are really hard so working it with normal tools (a hand plane or a spoke shave) is just going to tear out as the direction of grain changes. I’ve never seen a veneer cutter that could handle a burl that was within hobbyist reach, but a lathe is going to cost you under 1000$ and probably under 500$ if you get a used one with good capacity.
- tossit444 2y agoI'm assuming this is a video, but I see nothing on the page signifying there is supposed to be one.
- ZiiS 2y agoHave you blocked Vimeo? https://vimeo.com/1033412702/5ba4a41653 https://vimeo.com/1033412702/5ba4a41653
- mossTechnician 2y agoI'm not OP, but I can't see the video on my mobile browsers either (even after disabling any adblock).
- ada1981 2y agoI passed this up for the last few days thinking BURL was some obscure programming term / language. Really glad I decided to investigate today!
- ada1981 2y agoActually, if you want to make the most out of your (instance of) bUrl: a simple but flexible http3 testing framework, here is your guide! https://medium.com/@luajit.io/burl-a-simple-but-flexible-http-3-testing-framework-based-on-bash-and-curl-1c7d89e99960 https://medium.com/@luajit.io/burl-a-simple-but-flexible-htt...
- RickJWagner 2y agoBurled wood banjo resonators look great.