[HN Gopher] Make the most of your burl
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Make the most of your burl
Author : michael_forrest
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-11-30 06:51 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cindydrozda.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cindydrozda.com)
| michael_forrest wrote:
| This is an absolute masterclass in remote presentation. Cindy
| does incredible work.
| ggm wrote:
| Once 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 wrote:
| I spent a week burl hunting with my uncle in Alaska. Good times!
| (except for the mosquitos)
| Loughla wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| We 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 wrote:
| i 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 wrote:
| There's that ever-so short moment between "Man, this wood is
| hard!" and "Oh, crap"
| eitally wrote:
| I highly recommend this National Geographic series, Filthy
| Riches. It has an episode about "burl hunters".
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3654672/
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Wonderfully early 00s-style website.
| echelon wrote:
| I can't watch the video, so I had to look this up:
|
| 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 wrote:
| I didn't know what it was (clicked thinking it was curl
| related). Thanks for the link, it was an interesting read.
| Lammy wrote:
| I learned that word from Mastodon
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMeAEBujd7w
| jumploops wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| Why not?
| jpollock wrote:
| Fingers change size, but wooden rings can't be stretched.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| They can be sanded, just get a thick ring!
| jumploops wrote:
| Unless 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 wrote:
| If 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| toolslive wrote:
| Buck eye burl tops are quite common in custom shop guitars and
| basses.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| This 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
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| why'd you stop?
| ejs wrote:
| Took too much time
| abeppu wrote:
| So 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?
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(page generated 2024-11-30 23:00 UTC)