How to process a birch burl. Burl products, processing

The cap is also called the "witch's broom" - this is a small formation on a tree, of a benign nature. Basically, it looks like a drop, from which thin branches grow, gathering into a bundle. In the section across, you can see the structure of catchy knots. Processing cap is not easy, although grinding and polishing still lends itself. As a result, the work has a very attractive appearance.

Some areas of the birch burl may give off mother-of-pearl. In industry, it is not of particular value, but is quite expensive due to its beauty and uniqueness.

Burl can sometimes be used as furniture veneer, but most often it is burl. exotic trees. But from a birch burl they make beautiful caskets, women's small jewelry or hairpins, cigarette cases.

The birch burl has a high-quality texture, so a knife with a wooden handle is very beautiful and expensive.

Two identical caps cannot be found in nature, even the halves differ from each other. They can be seen on many different trees. In our latitudes it is very much appreciated birch burl. It does not grow large, the maximum diameter is like that of a large plate.

Due to the dense texture, it is difficult to make any drawing on the cap, and it makes no sense.

In order for the birch burl to be used for its intended purpose in the future, it is very important to assemble it correctly. To do this, we will acquaint you with detailed instructions:

Proper processing of birch burl

Very often, when sawing a cap, a unique and inimitable pattern is formed that the master does not want to change. In other cases, the cap after sawing is processed:

• Large caps are almost always sawn, as several items can be made from it at once. The cap is divided into several plates, the thickness of each depends on what item is planned to be made.
• In order to get an excellent drawing in the future, you should think over the cutting angle in advance. The more sleepers on the cut, the better.
• When the burl is fresh, the pattern is weak, but sawing is much easier.
• That the drawing appeared in full beauty, before making the item, the cap should be steamed well.
• You can steam the cap at home, fine sawdust is suitable for this. To carry out the procedure, they take a container of the right size (it is recommended to use an old pan, since the dyes that will appear cannot be washed off). Sawdust is laid out in a generous layer on the bottom, a cap is placed on top. It is impossible to lay tightly, there should be a gap of at least 0.5 centimeters. Sawdust is sprinkled on top in a thin layer.
• The laid cap is poured into a saucepan with well-salted water (mainly the bottom layer). Water should not completely cover the workpieces, but only touch them a little. Salt is taken with the calculation of 1 tbsp. l. for 1 liter of water. If there is a little more - it does not matter.
• The prepared cap is covered with a lid and put on a small fire. As soon as the mixture boils, they tell off about 10 hours, and let the cap steam well. To avoid trouble, they look into the container every hour, if necessary, add water.
• At the end of the day, the container is removed from the fire and left to cool.
• After cooling, the blanks are washed under running water and left to dry. Turn them over every few hours to dry evenly. The drying period lasts about 3-4 days.
• When the blanks are completely dry, they are again steamed according to the above scheme, dried again. The procedure is repeated up to three times.
• If, after steaming, the bark has not completely fallen off, it is carefully removed by hand.
• The drying procedure is preferably carried out on the street. The first day is turned over quite often, on the third day 1-2 times is enough.
• It is great if it is possible to carry out the final drying in a special oven several times.
• If the cap is very large (larger than a basketball), this type of processing will not work. The drying or steaming process can cause cracks and other damage.
• Boil as basically cut into pieces. Whole growths on a birch are processed as common tree- by sanding and varnishing.
• When evaporating, the burl plates acquire the shade of the emitted components, it can be very diverse (yellow with a golden tint, brown, etc.).
• After processing, subsequent procedures can be carried out, for example, varnishing or painting.
• Before varnishing, the surface is well polished with coarse emery, then fine. Wood dust can be wiped off with a soft cloth.
• The drawing will appear in all its glory if the cap is treated with wax.

In fact, working with a burl is very painstaking, it requires attention and a lot of time. But what is obtained as a result of labor is certainly pleasing. Birch burl makes excellent souvenirs that have an individual and unique pattern.

Sometimes painful growths appear on the trees, which are popularly called "witch's broom." At first glance, this benign formation in its form resembles human head. That is why it is generally accepted that the name of the growth comes from the ancient Slavic word "cap". It means "head" in translation.

Where can you find growths on trees

Caps are found on walnuts and oaks, on aspens, and however, the most common growth is found on birch. Cap is a bundle of thin twigs that grow from a drop-shaped neoplasm. Weigh "witch broom" can be about a ton.

stem? This is a growth that is located directly on the trunk of a tree. What is a kapokoren? This is a growth that has formed at the very root neck of the tree. Sometimes it can be seen above earth's surface. An underground burl grows on the roots. He is found on the run. Releases their cap in early spring. These shoots are not viable and quickly wither. Sometimes burl is found on tree branches.

The beauty of amazing material

If you make a cross section of the burl, you can find its structure, in which the cores of the knots are pronounced. The drawing of such material is always very beautiful. Due to the accumulation of unblown buds, the cut is an amazingly beautiful picture of knots, curls and twisted fibers. At the same time, the pattern for each cap is strictly individual.

The burl formed on trees with a striped texture of fibers and contrasting color combinations is distinguished by its special beauty. Pine growths have such characteristics. However, they are quite rare on these trees.

You can find black dots in the texture of the kapokorn. They are located among the light stem fibers. These black dots are nothing more than non-viable shoots that release underground neoplasms.

Where is cap used?

As a material for carving, the build-up on the tree is not of particular value. Its rugged surface and striped mottled texture interfere with each other. When making crafts in this way, the relief of the carving does not look and the pattern of weaves and stains disappears.

Numerous areas of the burl have a mother-of-pearl tint. That is why this material, which has no special industrial significance, is valued very dearly. Cap products are mainly boxes and women's hairpins, cigarette cases and various small jewelry, bowls and chess and powder boxes, ink devices and The material is also used for the manufacture of knife handles.

What is cap in industry? This is a material that is used in the decoration of furniture. In this case, the growths formed on exotic trees are taken and used as veneer.

What is a cap for a master? It is a material that does not warp, crack, shrink or swell and is excellently processed. In addition, it is heavy and durable.

Where to find cap?

Growths grow on trees. Therefore, it is necessary to look for them in the forest. However, it is not so easy, because caps grow spontaneously, and only the most stubborn and big-eyed can see them. You can cut off the build-up only with a very sharply sharpened saw.
It is most realistic to find a cap at logging sites. There, these growths fall into the waste. At logging sites, there are also kapokorni, which you simply cannot find in the forest.

Preparation of material for work

Cap can be found on various types trees. However, the most beautiful and valuable in our area is the growth that has arisen on a birch.

Cap products are not obtained immediately. The material requires some preliminary preparation. How to process birch burl? To do this, you need to use the steaming method. It is suitable for those growths that are not very large in size. The cap is cleared of debris, placed in an unnecessary pan and filled with water. Then salt must be added to the container. For a liter of water, its dosage is two tablespoons with a top. Salt can be poured and more. She will draw the juice from the tree. With this method, sawdust obtained during the processing of resinous wood species is also used. They need to be put into a bowl. The sawdust gives the burl a pleasant color that can range from yellowish-pink to brownish-buff. The resins found in the sawdust will add strength to the build-up and allow the texture to show up brighter.

After boiling water, the fire should be slightly reduced and the pan left on the stove for six to eight hours. As scale builds up, it should be removed. In the process of steaming, it is necessary to monitor the volume of water in the pan and periodically add it.

At the end of the “cooking”, the build-up is washed from sawdust under running water and placed in a closet for a day or two. After that, the whole process should be repeated at least two to four times. During the last cooking, while the tree has not cooled down, you should peel off the bark from it, and at the end put the growth in a closet for one to two weeks.

Having completely dried out, the cap in its characteristics will become similar to the bone. The material prepared in this way is excellently cut, sawn and polished. At the same time, it will not have any foreign odors.

Making caskets

Crafts made from birch burl in their beauty are not inferior to souvenirs made of wood and even surpass them. Often magnificent caskets are made from this material.

In the process of work, the burl boards are carefully connected to each other, making sure that their texture pattern is similar. A very responsible operation is the manufacture of wooden hinges. This stage requires precise formation of rounded spikes and grooves on the edges of the cover and body of the product. The hinges must fit snugly and accurately. One more complicated operation is drilling holes. In wooden hinges, this is easiest to do with thin steel wire. At the next stage, a lock crashes into the box. The product is almost ready. It should only be puttied, dried thoroughly and coated with alkaline varnish. After completion of these works, the box is treated with polish and wiped with alcohol. The product is polished until the wood acquires and all the veins of its amazing texture play brightly.

cane decoration

Using a cap, you can make a great gift for an elderly person with your own hands. The work can be done even by a novice. Hollow cylinders should be alternately put on a tube or a metal rod, which are previously machined from birch kapokorn. Details should be tightly fitted to each other, creating the impression of a single whole. A carved or smooth birch handle can crown such a cane.

Burl bowl

Various souvenirs can be made from wooden growths. Popular burl products are decorative bowls. A rough blank is made from a little raw material. Next, the blank is left to dry. If small cracks form in it, then they are lubricated with PVA glue. After the final drying, the product is given the necessary shape, it is ground, polished and varnished.

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15.05.2017

The tree is the most common plant on earth.

Nature is incredibly generous, since it gave a person not only the opportunity to admire the beauty of trunks and leaves, but also to extract practical benefits from wood, because for several thousand years people have been using wooden products in their everyday life, building houses, boats, making furniture and household utensils, producing musical instruments, crafts, etc.

To date, there is no material capable of completely replacing the wonderful natural properties wood, because its density, color, texture, texture pattern and shades are unique in each case.

The natural originality of the wood pattern is especially evident in cape and suveli(ball-shaped or tear-shaped growths on trees), which pundits have identified as diseases.

These formations create a complex enchanting pattern of wood fibers inside, consisting of an interweaving of colored lines, spots, blotches, smoothly flowing into each other, which form, thus, a pattern of special beauty. Due to the richness of colors and lines, both burl and suvel are an excellent natural material for the production of various handicrafts, jewelry, interior items, since they have an exclusive texture (it is impossible to find two identical patterns in nature), and special strength and durability.

Let's try to determine how cap and suvel differ from each other, and what is common between them.

cap

Cap ( kapokoren or as it is also popularly called witch broom"") is a rounded benign formation on a trunk or branch with large quantity wood knots. Cap, just differs from suveli in that it has many bumps on its outer side, which are created thanks to adnexal and dormant buds. These formations look like dark spikes and tubercles, which is why, often on the cap, you can observe small shoots and twigs growing directly from it.

According to some scientists, a burl on a tree occurs as a result of either abrupt change in the development of a plant, that is, it can have both a natural and an anthropogenic cause of occurrence. Some scientists believe that the appearance of an ugly tumor on a tree may be a hereditary deformity.

Burl occurs mainly on deciduous trees, such as oak, linden, maple, alder, poplar, walnut, but most often it can be found on birch.

It has been noticed that on average, for one tree with a burl, there are from three to five thousand trees without such formation, so finding a good burl (unlike suveli) is quite difficult.

Most often, a root burl is found on trees, which can be simply gigantic in size.

Usually, kapokoren it has a softly expressed texture inside and a drawing that is weak in contrast of colors.

A burl formed on a branch often has the shape of an irregular ball and, unlike the kapokorn, when cross-sectioned, its internal texture is replete with patterns with knot cores and has a kind of “needle” structure in the form of a small ornament with dashes and dots. The internal fibers of the wood are intertwined in various directions, creating a picturesque pattern, and interspersed with dormant buds make the texture even richer, so the cap is most often used as a decorative element in the manufacture of various handicrafts, knife handles, rifle butts, original dishes and other souvenirs.

In processing, due to the strong density of its texture and the huge number of knots, the burl is not simple, but at the same time it is perfectly ground and polished.

The main color of the internal texture of the cap is various shades of black or brown, ocher. Even if you take two halves of the same cap, they will still be different and have a different pattern, so the structure of the build-up is heterogeneous.

The wood of the burl is stronger than that of the suveli, and fifty to seventy percent stronger than that of the tree on which it was formed.

Small items are also produced from burl: caskets, cigarette cases, hairpins, earrings, bracelets, small jewelry.

It does not make sense to create a carved pattern on the cap, since the texture and texture of wood is beautiful in itself.

Souvelle

The formation of suveli is caused by a tree disease (cancer) and it most often represents a growth twisted and woven into a ball, which is why it is also called swilem.

Typically, the swirl grows two to three times faster than the tree itself and has a teardrop or spherical shape, located around the trunk or branch. The main difference between suveli and burl is that it is formed not from dormant buds, but due to the complex interweaving of annual rings bent in different directions (hence the name svil). On this basis, the cones on the tree are easy to distinguish from each other.

Growths (especially on birch) are quite common, although the reason for its formation has not been fully studied. Presumably, a fungus or mechanical damage to the tree bark can initiate the formation of a stria.

Suvel (popularly called tree bone), since its cut resembles stains of marble (with the same overflows and radial section), and thin parts are visible through and outwardly similar to bone, although the density of tissues, as mentioned above, is less for suveli than for burl, therefore its wood is less durable.

The outgrowth of the suveli can grow to gigantic sizes (for example, in the Vatican there is a font carved from a single piece of wood). However, the finer the swirl, the richer and brighter the drawing inside, although the pattern with ornamental elements will in any case be softer (without patterns in the form of “thorns” and “needles”, which are obligatory for the burl).

The internal texture of the suvel has a delicate mother-of-pearl hue, and the colors of each can vary greatly and contain white, yellow (resembling the color of amber), as well as brown, pinkish and green colors. The shade of suveli depends on the place where the tree grows and how it is dried.

Suvel can be formed by yourself, for this it is enough to drag the trunk or branch of the tree with wire. In place of the constriction, a convex formation will soon appear, created by annual rings.

Souvelle also lends itself well to processing, well ground, polished, and its mother-of-pearl cut, reminiscent of marble, playing with stains, has a unique texture and, as it were, glows from the inside.

Of course, it is impossible to determine how beautiful the drawing will be by the appearance of the suveli, but the more clumsy and twisted the growth looks externally, the richer its texture and pattern inside will be.

The root (butt) part of the suveli is considered the most valuable. It is of interest to wood carvers, artists, knife makers, sculptors and cabinet makers, who choose this material for its exclusivity in cut, high strength, resistance to rot and unique ability to processing.

Search and preparation of growths

Naturally, it is necessary to look for bulges on a tree in the forest. At the same time, many people confuse burl and sville with a fungus similar to them from the genus (Inonotus), which most often lives on birch and is called chaga or black birch mushroom.

It is necessary to learn to determine where the fungus is and where the growth is.

It is best to cut down the streak and burl in autumn (September-October), when the trees stop the natural movement of sap and begin preparations for winter.

It must be remembered that without a good saw, a suvel or cap, especially if they are very clumsy, is not easy to cut, so this work is best done with a chainsaw, but it must be remembered that the tool chains quickly become dull due to the special strength of the build-up.

If there is no chainsaw, you will have to work with a hand saw, but it must have sharply honed teeth with a good divorce so that the master does not torment himself or the tree, and does not injure him in vain.

The place of the cut (to avoid the formation of a hollow that is undesirable for the tree) must be immediately covered with garden pitch, painted over with oil paint or covered with clay.

When a massive kapokornya, it must be remembered that its cut is fraught with serious consequences for the tree and as a result of the injury it may die.

All of the above properties, both burl and streak, elevate these unique materials to the pinnacle of value among other types of wood, since they are used as in decoration. various items utilitarian purpose, as well as jewelry, small plastic and dishes.

If an unusual outgrowth appeared on a tree, this means that the structure of this plant has undergone some strong changes.

One of the layers of any wood is the so-called cambium. And such growths usually grow precisely due to it. It turns out that the integrity of this very cambium was somehow violated by certain natural conditions or mechanical damage.

This article is dedicated to this interesting phenomenon. After reading it, you can find out what growths are on trees, what they are called, and what their meaning is.

Causes of growths

Usually in plants they arise as a result of a sharp change in its development, which has either a natural or anthropogenic cause.

Growths are sometimes in the form of formations that are simply round in shape, and there are also several cones located next to each other. The latter is due to the fact that when the integrity of the wood is violated for some reason, the tree tries to protect itself from various fungal diseases and insects, and therefore such unthinkable forms of formation grow.

Growths on trees: photo, name, general description

Cap (and kapokoren) is an outgrowth on a tree with strongly deformed directions of wood fibers. For the most part, there are rounded outgrowths on a branch or trunk. They are filled with small nodules of dormant buds.

Caps grow, as noted above, due to the cambium. This is a kind of trunk. But besides caps, there are also other types of growths: smooth (spherical) - suvel; irregular shape- tree cancer.

Some burls grow underground as root tumors. Therefore, they are found only after the death of the plant. Such basal outgrowths on trees sometimes represent several round (in the form of cones) bulges, interconnected by rope-like roots. Burls are almost always covered with bark, even if they are underground (this is a natural defense against insects and diseases).

Some types of plants have growths of enormous size. For example, these can be on a sequoia. In 1984, an outgrowth of unthinkable size was discovered in Australia on a eucalyptus tree. It reached about 2 m in diameter and in height, and strange shape it was like a trombone.

Types of growths

Such growths are found on almost all tree species, but most of all on deciduous ones. Especially often they are found on oak, pine, birch and alder. In form, they can be completely different. Often there are growths on the tree in the form of mushrooms.

These formations are divided into two groups (according to the arrangement of fibers in them): ordinary, in which the pattern looks like neatly combed hair - suvel-val; influxes with small, rounded and intricately curved lace patterns - caps.

The cap formed on the stem is called, and the basal one is located at the root. The second is also called kapokornem. It is found in the forest much more often than the stem.

The most rare, durable and beautiful, and therefore valuable, is considered to be a branch burl (growth on tree branches), which has a relatively small size (15 cm in diameter) and a needle-like structure. And the most common (less dense and valuable) is the root cap, sometimes reaching gigantic sizes. The stem growth occupies an intermediate position between the above varieties.

value, feature

Growths on trees are very diverse in shape and size. The wood of burls looks very beautiful in the following plants: maple, cherry, pear. In the international market, growth in walnut. It should be noted that there have been cases where some textured mouthguards have been valued for their weight in silver.

For the most part, growths of small sizes are found, but there are also specimens that reach 2 meters in diameter and weigh more than one ton. Moreover, it often happened that education was entirely amazing magical patterns.

In a birch, growths are found much smaller than on a walnut tree. It happens that in the beauty of their pattern, they are significantly superior to the latter.

Who would have thought that an ordinary knobby growth on a tree has such valuable properties!

Properties of burl wood

Burlap wood has amazing, truly valuable properties:

The natural uniqueness of the pattern on the cut, the uniqueness of the structure.

Very high strength.

Does not burn in a free fire.

Perfectly polished.

Virtually indestructible.

Does not crack, dry out or swell.

Economic importance and application

Growths on trees are of great benefit. Not the plant itself, no. They are used by man in production various products. Caps are needed to obtain unusual wood with a peculiar texture of fibers. Due to the variety of unique drawings, this material is widely demanded and used by artists, cabinet makers and sculptors.

There is a huge variety of well-known and common types of burl used in the manufacture of veneer, beautiful interior items, board games, picture frames, household items, jewelry, etc. Such wood is not very easy to process due to its unevenness and heterogeneity of fiber growth directions, but it is strong and durable.

Cap is widely used in decorative arts. On Vyatka in the 19th century, a folk art craft: craftsmen made Vyatka burl boxes, desk writing sets, etc.

Research results

According to statistics, for every 3000 ordinary trees, without growths, there is an average of one burl tree.

Since 1959, in connection with the value of such wood, the Central Research Institute of Forest Genetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences began to study the biological study of burls and methods of growing them. Scientists have developed a technology for sowing and growing birches with burls. As a result, a huge grove was planted in the suburbs. And since 1967, the planting of such a birch began to be carried out in the forestry of the Kirov region.

How to get cap?

In any case, it is not worth spoiling a living tree in the forest because of a beautiful cap. Moreover, this one is not so difficult to find - on trees in city parks, in gardens. Yes, and cut down annually a large number of trees on which burls can be found.

And yet ... In case of urgent need, this should be done carefully and between late autumn until early spring, when the movement of sap in the tree is slowed down.

The build-up can be cut off with a sharp knife or sawed off with a saw. Be sure to cut the place to be treated with hydrogen peroxide and cover with garden pitch. You can also lubricate the cut with drying oil or fresh resin (a natural antiseptic), although today it is difficult to find.

And for gardeners, the following is important. To avoid the formation of such ugly forms of growths on garden trees, you need to inspect the plants more often. If cracks and damage are found, it is necessary to heal them until large caps have formed. In gardens, it is desirable to treat all growths on trees and branches.

Conclusion

There were many opinions about the formation of caps. As a result, scientists came to this conclusion. Cap is a biologically normal, protective phenomenon. The formation of growth on a tree is a natural inherited natural process.

In the course of numerous scientific observations, it was found that such plants are healthier. Such a tree is more resilient during spring flood and during periods of frequent temperature changes. It is also more stable in the winds.

because of limited stocks this type of wood and in connection with the above described unique properties this material is the most valuable among others.

The price on the world market for burl (veneer and solid wood) far exceeds the cost of any other material of this kind, including walnut, oak, red and any exotic species.

Instruction

From each bud-needle, a large number of which were concentrated on a small surface, forming a cap, a branch could grow. Due to the fact that there are a lot of buds, not a single one can get out of the wood. From the collection of buds, a texture is formed that is unusual in shape and pattern. Not a single layer of wood can compete with burl natural beauty, complexity and rarity of the material. The unique birch burl is called wood malachite; burls on cherry, bird cherry and walnut are interesting. A cap is often called an influx, but this is a misnomer. Professionals can easily distinguish a cap from an influx - a layer of wood of the same tree, but with mixed growth rings. The influx when cut resembles marble with white veins.

Cap is divided into two varieties: needle cap and root cap. Needle is the rarest, it grows very slowly and only in early spring- when the leaves hatch on the trees, its growth stops. When making a transverse incision through the cap, you can find the place of its origin, the pattern will resemble a funnel, tapering towards the center of the trunk - this is the beginning of the needle cap. The large cap is very hard to find and highly prized. Cap-spine is similar in structure to needle-back, but there is a difference in the pattern of wood texture, which is darker and larger. It develops on the roots and in the root zone, on trees growing on moist soil - near streams, swamps and along river banks.

Even because of a large and beautiful burl, it is not worth spoiling a living tree. Especially to find this natural anomaly easy - a lot of burls develop on tree trunks in city parks, on poplars, American maples and lindens. A large number of trees are cut down every year, and it is not difficult to extract burls from them. If the need to remove the cap from a living tree is very great, this is done from late autumn to early spring, while the movement of juice in the tree is slowed down. For sawing, a saw with universal teeth is taken, the cut is made strictly along the trunk, vertically, without affecting the main wood. If the movement of the saw is very difficult, a spacer is made from a pair of wooden wedges that are hammered into the slot. After the cap is completely separated, the saw cut is immediately painted over with oil paint or drying oil. It is useless to paint over a cut made in the spring - the movement of the juice cannot be stopped by this, and the tree will inevitably be very sick.

Burl lends itself well to processing, it does not crack, warp or swell, and besides, its strength is several times higher than the wood of the tree on which it grows. The best option use - immediately after harvesting, clean the cap from the bark and saw it into planks 3-5 mm thick, so that later it can be used for the production of caskets or mosaics. In this option, the use of burl is more optimal, and in the manufacture of various bowls, vases and bowls, most of the material is lost. The most interesting burl pattern is obtained with a chordal cut, as a rule, it is a lot of points, each of which is surrounded by rings of a different shade, and different-color stains flow between the rings.

Sources:

• Growths on a birch

The texture of the burl often has such a bizarre pattern that you can see a finished image or landscape on it. In other cases, the burl is sawn and processed.

Instruction

If the cap is quite large, and, according to the idea, more than one thing, but several, can be made from it, it is sawn before processing. Most often, a cap is sawn into plates of various thicknesses: the thickness depends on what products are planned to be manufactured. To obtain the best pattern on all blanks, the cutting angle must be thought out in such a way as to cut as many dormant buds as possible. On a fresh cut, the pattern is hardly noticeable, but an untreated cap is easier to cut. But before making it into a product, the cap is steamed so that the drawing shows through completely and it can be shown in the work. It is best to steam the cap in small ones, you can do this in. You will need an unnecessary pan of a suitable size, the dyes released by the wood will be difficult to wash off. Sawdust is placed in a thick layer on the bottom, then a cap is laid out on them - but not close, there should be half a centimeter of gap between the blanks. From above, they are also laid with sawdust, but not in such a thick layer.

It is poured with salt water, but mainly the lower layer, so that the water only touches the workpieces, without completely covering them. Salt is taken per liter about a tablespoon, maybe a little more. Close the lid and put on a very slow fire. After boiling, the workpieces should be steamed for 6-10 hours, water should be added to the pan periodically, checking every hour. The pot is then removed from the heat and left to cool. The blanks are removed from the cooled sawdust, the sawdust is washed off with a jet of water, left to dry, turning over to dry evenly every few hours. Drying usually takes 3-4 days. After the blanks dry out, you need to repeat the process of boiling, then dry again, and so on at least 3 times. If, after three steamings, the bark itself has not fallen off the blanks, it must be removed. After steaming the burl blanks last time and, having removed the bark, leave the wood for the final drying. It is best to dry them outside, turning every few hours for the first 3 days, then once a day. After that, it’s a good idea to dry the workpieces in a special drying cabinet 2-3 times.

large pieces a solid burl larger than a soccer ball are not suitable for processing in this way. In the process of cooking or drying, the cap will definitely crack, and may burst. Figures from a solid burl are processed in the same way as any tree - they are polished, varnished. Boiling is best for burls that are sawn into thin slices. When steamed, these blanks are dyed with natural dyes in a wide variety of shades, from light golden to chocolate brown. After this lengthy treatment, you can begin to further improve the cap. Finished products are coated with alcohol or acrylic varnishes. Nitro-varnishes can also be used. Before coating, the surface is polished with emery - first large, and then the smallest, and wiped from wood dust with a soft cloth.

Sources:

• Cap processing