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Burl Source

Weird Wood Pusher
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
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This just showed up today.
A guy brought in a load of maple burl. A few good burl caps and this slab with a messed up cut.
I grabbed it before anyone else started getting ideas.
Looks to be good clean burl without bark pockets or other things that get in the way of good knife handle blocks.
Really good burl figure over 90%+ of the slab.
Won't be much waste from this piece. Size is about 32" x 24" x 4"+
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Regular blonde maple burl like this sells, but slowly.
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So I will probably be getting about 75% of this dyed when I send it in for stabilizing.

The advice I need from you guys/gals is what colors?
Usually I do blue, black and brown.
But.....I would like to hear what you have to say.
Maple burl takes dye better than most other woods so anything goes.
 
Here is what black and brown can look like.
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Maybe you are thinking "More Green"
Looks like malachite but makes me think of the Incredible Hulk.
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Or Blue?
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I like light brown with dark brown Natural Figured :doublethumbsup:
 
I like natural colors, but damn that blue sure looks especially nice...
 
Don't dye it all. Leave a few of the nicest pieces as they are. Someone will buy them eventually . . .
 
black brown and blue all together. With a little red in there. ooooo orange would be cool but I don't see that having any contrast with what stays natural.
 
I like all of the colors you have done previously. A dark blue could look nice.
 
What about double dyed? I see some cool purple-teal, orange-red, blue-green, etc double dyes.
 
Brown, Blue and Black I like. The undyed Maple is often a tad too light and the grain doesn't pop as much.
 
Gold, brown, black, blue - as long as it's not green ;) Not sure how maple burl is with double dying, tha may be worth a try also.

Stefan
 
I personally love the Blue - Some pieces make me think of some of Van Gogh's work.
 
Black, to be paired with kurouchi finished blades... :cool2:
 
+1 on tie dying some of them.

Also, Son has a good idea to do dark red/black.
 
I personally love the Blue - Some pieces make me think of some of Van Gogh's work.

I too often think of van Gogh when I see blue handles like those pictured above.

Not sure I would ever put any of this on a knife of my own, but I like seeing it. In addition to blue, white sounds interesting, as well as red.
 
White is not dye. It is paint. Just teasing. If I bleached the wood it would break down the wood fibers too much with the time it would take to bleach all the way through.
I was thinking about red. I'll just tell them to leave it in the dye vat for a long time so it doesn't look pink.
I will have to ask about double dyeing maple. It works good on box elder which is also in the acer family but is a much softer wood.
I plan on doing some orange as well. Turns out kind of like hunter orange on maple.

+1 on tie dying some of them.
I can get the tie dye look if there is some natural red/orange color near the heart of the burl. That portion will usually resist the dye for the tie dye look.
 
The blue looks psychedelic, but I'd never want it as a wa on a Japanese blade. Only possibly as a western on a crazy damascus blade or something, Itou-style.

Keep it natural. This is Canada's national tree, and if you ever travelled there with defaced maple you might be subject to arrest under federal law.
 
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