Thread: Some advice on this silky burl please?

No suggestion as i have no idea but good score.That going to make something really nice
Toni

Hi I use a wire brush on an angle grinder. Different types available from soft tohard bristle. Takes off bark and leaves a soft polish on the sapwood knobs.. Hope this helpsd. Mal.

Faceplate sounds like the go, that's a fair bit of weight there!
Lovely bit of burl, should turn v well.

On the centre of the sawn face I would screw on a faceplate and then turn a natural edge bowl, ie: turn and finish outside of bowl with spigot or recess and then mount in chuck and turn and finish inside of bowl.
Cheers
Barry

This link shows how I tackled a similar burl while wanting to retain the natural exterior.

To get the bark off I just picked away at it with a flatbladed screwdriver and hammer... If you can get your hands on a high pressure water cleaner you might have some good success.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Toasty, that is what i had in mind. Thanks for the link. I'll see what it looks like when I get the bark off. It's sort of loose in patches, so I'll try a high pressure water cleaner to start with.
Cheers

Did this with a lump of jarrah burl; spigot looks better than a recess in my view.

There are some options too if you don't want to spoil the natural edge bottom, ie, you want a turned inside but entirely natural exterior. Sing out if you're interested.

btw some 'naked' burls look pretty ordinary; others like Jarrah have a texture worth looking at.

Originally Posted by rsser

Did this with a lump of jarrah burl; spigot looks better than a recess in my view.

There are some options too if you don't want to spoil the natural edge bottom, ie, you want a turned inside but entirely natural exterior. Sing out if you're interested.

btw some 'naked' burls look pretty ordinary; others like Jarrah have a texture worth looking at.

Thanks rssr. I am definately interested, if your method differes from Toasty's link. A spigot might be worth considering. How? I think if this bark comes off OK the "naked burl" might be good!
Cheers

Well, sorry if this is teaching you how to suck eggs but for the sake of clarity, and bear in mind I'm no technical writer so am doing my best ;-} ...

Toasty turned a recess in which your jaws fit in expansion mode. I've found burls variable in their grain patterns and so variable in the strength of the recess so prefer to turn a spigot, ie. a stub, that I can then later refine into a foot.

The drawback is that your chuck jaws will likely leave marks on it when you've turned it so at the end of all the turning you have to find a way to reverse chuck again to clean up the spigot (ie. foot). An exception is if you size the spigot so that it is slightly smaller in diameter than your jaws so that it's the inside of the jaws rather than the sharp ends that do the gripping. Make sense? I'm a fan of a foot on a bowl btw, to give the overall form lift and flow.

If that's not possible and you have to clean up and refine the foot, you can do so by turning a faceplate carrier out of MDF and fix it to the top of the bowl with hot-melt glue. About five or six blobs will do it. You might need to shape your carrier with a shoulder so that it fits the top of the bowl in a self-centering way. Still make sense?

Then when you've done the foot, just knock the bowl off the carrier, or if you like get the missus' hair dryer and warm it all up and then knock it off.

As for stripping the bark off your burl, it might be worth checking on the forum or with suppliers to see if it will look good. I've no experience with debarked silky burl.

Best of luck with the project.

Toasty turned a recess in which your jaws fit in expansion mode.

I had actually planned on gripping the foot but stoopid me didn't measure enough times and cut the foot too small for the 100mm jaws *sigh*

With my burl in particular I chose a recessed foot as the piece was quite out of balance. I would have lost too much of the outside natural edge trying to make a spigot foot wide enough for the bowl to stand on without falling on its side. So it was easier to slice off the bottom and keep balancing off the lathe until I removed enough that it wouldn't topple.

silky burl???????

Thanks for the tips, and it is very clear, and your not teaching me to suck eggs! I am a turning novice, but enjoying the challenge.
ROWIE- Silky burl is my abreviation for Silky Oak burl. A tree that grows prolificly up here and even down Sydney way. In the Grevillia family, with yellow flowers ,and gets to be a good size!

Don't forget to post a pic of the finished product Cedar I've never seen a burl on a softwood like Silky so it should be interesting!

Originally Posted by TTIT

Don't forget to post a pic of the finished product Cedar I've never seen a burl on a softwood like Silky so it should be interesting!

No worries TTIT. Might be a while though, got a few other projects on the hop! Cheers