Thread: The Knurly Burly Harvest.

The neighborhood I live in is going to develop the second phase of the property they own, likely in the coming months. It is probably around 20 to 30 acres, with roughly 10 acres of wooded land. Some trees are already dead & dying, felled by storms & the likes. Most, if not all of the timber is not old enough, or otherwise suitable for any sort of large scale harvest. It was probably farmland a couple decades ago.

Anyway. I intend to harvest some pieces of wood for use as scales, and maybe even brush handles and/or lather bowls much later down the road. From what I gather, burls are are a good source of interesting grain paterns, even if it is from a run of the mill species of tree.

I'll start with downed trees, keeping an eye out for good candidates still among the living. I might even do some "raids under the cover of darkness!" Lol.

Using the sawzaw attachment for my Black and Decker matrix driver, I will cut them with an extra inch or two of normal wood. That is basically as far as I've gotten with this idea for gathering my own burls.

Do you guys have any suggestions for how I should go about this? Or sources of further information about the harvest & processing of burls?

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful responses!!

Forget those ""raids under the cover of darkness!" ,,, you might come home with some poison Oak or get shot over scales,,

Lol. I'd definitely wear the proper clothes for a wooded trek. I grew up out in the country, and though I don't recall exactly what the major itch causing plants look like, I know what plants to stay away from.

I highly doubt I'd get shot for strolling through woods with very little brush/ground cover. Except for my neighborhood, and the one across the street, there are only a few houses between here and the major road a mile or two away. Most of the other land around is (or was) open farmland.

The wooded area is, maybe, only about two acres wide, with a total area of over 10 acres IMO.

Crawler, what makes you think there are any burls on the property? Burls are usually from Old trees and form at the Base. I'm thinking you might harvest some roots, some hardwoods have nice root grain.

Originally Posted by FAL

Crawler, what makes you think there are any burls on the property? Burls are usually from Old trees and form at the Base. I'm thinking you might harvest some roots, some hardwoods have nice root grain.

Good idea with the roots. And as far as the likelihood of finding burls: playing the odds.

I don't expect to find a burl the size of a refrigerator at the base of a grand oak. But trees lose limbs. Those broken limbs turn into knurled knot, where the limb had sprung from the trunk. Sometimes those knots become benign; sometimes they continue to increase in size, becoming a growth on the tree, like a mole you'd consider giving a nickname .

So yes, I'm aware that I won't find any huge honking burls. I'm just hoping to find some big to turn into scales. Maybe. I'm a silver lining kind of guy.