Thread: How stable are burls?

Yes & No.

The grain is confused so the shrinkage is unpredictable.
Some of them will crack while others don't.
Often the cracks are only short & not straight so it is possible to make a feature out of them by filling them with something that will polish up & take the same finish as applied to the rest of the piece. Something dark is best.
You can also get stuck into it with a carving tool, sander, wirewheel, or pyrography (sp?) tool & burn the crack to make it more rustic looking.

So you are saying they are predictably unpredictable?

Sometimes they are but somtimes they aren"t

If the base of the burl is flat, they are stable.
But!!!!!
If the base is rounded the buggers are very UNstable. :eek:

Al

In my experience Coolibah is very stable,Red Gum unstable, Mallee so so, Myrtle unstable, Tassie Eucalyptus bloody unstable, Yellow Box, White Box, Grey Box OK, Red Box tends to split. This is from rough turning bowl blanks.
Cheers
Barry

Thanks peoples. I cut a dead burl from a yellow box ages ago, cut it into about 18mm slices straight away, they bowed and twisted a bit straight off. I put this down to internal stresses and all. After a few months nothing untoward had happened so I hooked in and used it all.

I have a few ideas to use more, but am concerned about mitres opening etc. Sounds like it might be suck it and see a bit.

Yellow box can split a bit. I might try some Red Gum, if I can find any on a dead tree. I can get Blakely's red gum, not Camaldulensis, but it'sd all worth a try.