Thread: Drying Musk Burl

Hi Gary - you're not getting deluged with answers, so I'll donate my one tiny bit of experience with Musk burl. I had a piece about 100 x 75 by maybe 30mm thick, iirc. It came covered with wax all over. This doesn't seem logical to me 'cos in my view, you want to prevent rapid egress of moisture from end-grain while it diffuses (slowly) out across the grain in the rest of the piece. Of course with burl, it's usually pretty hard to decide where the "end grain" actually is, so many suppliers just dip the whole piece in wax or similar material. This slows drying to virtually nil if the coating is thick & relatively impervious, & gets the wood to you in one piece, but leaves you with the dilemma of how to proceed from there.

Since I didn't want to wait forever before using the wood, I decided to scrape/plane some of the wax away from the areas that looked like they were more side-grain than end-grain. The wood was very 'wet' under the wax so I put it aside in a spot where I thought it wouldn't dry too quickly & left it for at least 18 months, (probably quite a bit longer, it was a long time back so can't remember the exact time). Well, it dried fine - the surfaces I'd planed became a little knobby from uneven shrinkage as you'd expect, but it remained sound with no evident cracking. From my limited experience with drying burls, it can be an unpredictable process, but softer woods like Musk tend to absorb drying stresses without failures better than hard, splitty woods, so as long as you take it easy you have a good chance of getting your wood dry in one piece.

The greatest danger to any 'green' wood in my hands is my own impatience.....

Cheers,

The greatest danger to any 'green' wood in my hands is my own impatience.....Whole heartedly agree Ian!, steady Eddie wins the race!

A burl supplier from Indonesia suggested, too boil the billet in water which will release the gases from inner cellular structure, which speeds up the drying waiting game, but my gut feeling declined his offer.
So I will endeavour too sticker both heavily end grain waxed billet & strap up tightly together, place then in a indirect fan location of drying room, then ugh, patiently twiddle my thumbs for next 2 years !

Thanks for responding Ian, I'll report back When 12% dry achieved..... or not!

Cheers,
Gary

If it I tight grain I just leave it in a sheltered but ventilated area to dry. Burl has grain going in all directions, so there is no point sealing any of it, indeed being that wet you run the risk of it rotting if sealed.