Thread: Damp Red Mallee

Peter, which corner of the roof?? Amos

Nice looking blanks Peter, but only 12kg of blanks from 34kg of burl

What happened to the rest of the burl?

Just let me know when you are goinging to be out for awhile. Love what you done with the buckets. Nice blanks

Nice work! How long you reckon it will take them to dry?

Nice collection of blanks.

Will you wax the ends before putting them in the roof?

There was a message in my post.It is when you have an oportunity to buy a dry well sized pen blank you can count yourself fortunate since you can see there are several losses. Firstly the bark.
Second they are wet or damp. You pay for that moisture it is considerable.
Third a burl is a conglomerate, the part we love is not all the way through.
There was a 50 mm branch sticking out that went all the way through creating a useless knot in most major slices.
Picture a slice of water melon well Red Mallee looks like this as you cut it only more of the rind and a real lot of shakes in the timber.

My roof experiment will show me how long it takes to dry this way,with a 24 hr air flow to ease the cooking process.
Neil the rest is now firewood I only seek top blanks, when I shared the Brown Mallee Burl and Amboyna Burl I selected every one and disposed of the others, it cost me money but gave me satisfaction none the less.
Cisco the duration of the dry is unknown.
Big Shed no not waxed but I will constantly check the progress.
I have nearly twenty years of dry burl to cut yet. Sliced a couple of Myrtle recently dry.

My impression is we all seek unique for nothing much and wish to sell for the most we can get, perhaps if we are fair in the purchases and give respect to those who sell great blanks and factor these as real costs in production develop lasting relationships
to everyones benefit.Lastly Amos there are no corners to cut in Aussie rules I was taught the shortest way is through the centre, and look after your mates. Have success with your show.

Regards Peter

Peter, I have to agree with you when cutting burl pen blanks. There is a lot of bark that adds to the weight, and the bloody bark inclusions in the middle of the burl, knots and other defects seem to decrease the recovery rate. Oh did I mention the bark inclusions! Another thing is the sapwood - depending on how much rot there is, you could loose some more there.

The other thing that seems to bring the recovery rate down is the fact that most burls are half footballs. You end up wasting lots of good timber because you have a wedge on both ends of the stick.

My last Myrtle burl that I was cutting I lost over 70% in weight because off all these factors. 3kg equated to about 15 good pen blanks.

The next hurdle is the drying process. 15 might become 10 or 8 depending on how much they twist or crack.

Peter, I haven't tried drying mallee, coolabah or York gum. Might have to pay you a visit or your supplier a visit to stock up on some more burl! That might happen when I get a bit more of the folding stuff in my pocket.

Timberbits.

when you bought you red mallee, If you don't mind me asking.. what did it cost you?, and how much were you planing on selling you blanks for?

I feel that good quality blanks that are hand cut with no inclusion and feature grade figure, should be worth more than the $1.5 some times I think that $5 isn't unreasonable especially for burl and Spalted timbers in oversize blanks.

Nice work
Next time you're cutting up give me a yell - I'll come up and give you a hand (I'll bring the trailer as well )
I'm actually quite interested in your roof drying techniques!

There is no stopping you Peter, what a beautiful treasure I am sure time in the roof will reveal some XXXXXX class blanks they look stunning wet.

If you keep posting pictures like this you will have to install a security guard.

Look forward to seeing the end result when they are dry

The worst thing about burl is the hidden inclusions in apparently clear. I do respect the timber you sell and no the intention is not to market however there will come a time when I will have a clearance with advancing age. My sharing what I do is because we are distances away from one another and I show some of my ideas and you all do the same like the man Norbert in France we all learn from one another.
I do see the need for different prices when you cut large you lessen the number of pieces and yes there needs to be a premium to pay for clear and beautiful and rare and so forth. Been cutting up two year cut Olive and it is still wet in the log form to pen blanks and what with the effort in travelling,cutting on site, fuel etc well draw your own conclusions.
I do not visit the for sale or seldom, do you advertise your timber there? You sell great timber and this should be said, I have bought from you and am well pleased.
Regards to all. Peter

PenPal, thanks for the acalade, I too love this forum and share what I know when I can we do everynow and then put a few bit and peices onthe Buy Sell and swap area, but I prefer that Ppl ask us rather than forcing a sale onto guys, in this friendly forum, not trying to hijack your post have a look at these oversize (30x30x150mm) spalted Liquard amber blanks, they too are damp as the tree has only been down a fortnight and the blanks only cut a week ago

Hi Salty

Why do you cut your pen blanks so long? 150mm is quite a long pen. I find that 120mm will cover any pen kit on the market. The extra 30mm is a quarter wasted which will eventually lead to a lower recovery rate. Also 30mm x 30mm is a bit of a waste as well. I know that they are still wet, but do are you doing yourself an injustice buy being so generous?

I have found that even with wet burl, cutting to 22mm x 22mm is enough to recover a 19mm x 19mm pen blank from. Also I try to leave them as 22mm boards and dry them that way, I have found that it leads to a better quality pen blank.

Timberbits.

Whilst 120mm may do most kits, it will not allow for custom work such as closed end pens, making a centre band or finial.