Читать книгу Ellsworth on Woodturning - David Ellsworth - Страница 17

I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation of why burls form, which is probably why there’s so much misinformation about them. The best story I’ve ever heard came from an old New Englander who said that if you whacked a tree on one side in the early winter, a burl would start to grow on the other side in the spring. Sounded pretty good to me!

I don’t have much faith in the idea of burls being cancerous growths, as their growth patterns are quite regular rather than random, and certainly not destructive to the host tree unless there is a bark opening that will absorb moisture and induce rot. That said, it is possible to mistake a branch overgrowth for a burl, as they often look alike in older trees. Mature overgrowths are bulging elements that surround a broken branch and there is always a hole in the face of them. Maybe that’s what causes the confusion.

It is possible for some trees, like this Norway maple, to explode in one continuous burl.

Burl delivery

Sometimes burls come in trucks, and often in boxes. There is nothing like having a few tons’ worth of redwood burl shipped to you directly from California…

A boxed-up black ash burl being pulled from the back of a tractor trailer. My long and winding driveway is not navigable to trucks, so instead, I rope up with my truck and jerk the burls off. In the case of extremely heavy burls, I lock my truck down, and the driver of the semi simply drives off, leaving me with a lump in the road.

A redwood lace burl I shipped from California in 1986, shown in the back of the tractor trailer. It weighed 7,300 pounds.

The cut surface beneath the pins shows the classic "eye" burl grain patterns.