Birch burl stock. Fast and high-quality drying of mouth guards and suvels at home

Sometimes painful growths appear on the trees, which are popularly called the "witch's broom". At first glance, this benign formation resembles in its form human head... That is why it is generally accepted that the name of the build-up comes from the Old Slavic word "kap". Translated, it means "head". Where to find growths on trees Caps are found on walnuts and oaks, aspens and black alder. However, the most common growth is on birch. A burl is a bunch of thin twigs that grow from a teardrop-shaped neoplasm. The "witch's broom" can weigh about a ton. What is a stem cap? This is a growth that is located directly on the trunk of the tree. What is Kapokorot? This is an outgrowth that has formed at the very root of the collar of the tree. Sometimes it can be seen over ground surface... An underground burrow grows on the roots. It is found by the shoots. Releases their burls at the beginning of spring. These shoots are not viable and wither quickly. 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 a 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. Moreover, the pattern for each mouthguard is strictly individual. The burl formed on trees with a striped grain texture and contrasting color combinations is of particular beauty. These are the characteristics of pine outgrowths. However, they are quite rare on these trees. Black dots can be found in the texture of the kapokroot. They are located among the light stem fibers. These black dots are nothing more than non-viable shoots that release underground neoplasms. Where is the mouthpiece used? As a material for carving, a build-up on a tree is not of particular value. Its jagged 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. As a material for carving, a build-up on a tree is not of particular value. Its jagged 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 are pearlescent. That is why this material, which has no special industrial significance, is highly valued. Products made of burl are mainly caskets and female hairpins, cigarette cases and various small jewelry, bowls and smoking pipes, chess pieces and powder boxes, ink utensils and cases for glasses. The material is also used for the manufacture of knife handles. What is a cap in industry? It is a material that is used in furniture decoration. In this case, outgrowths formed on exotic trees are taken and used as veneer. What is a master mouthpiece? This is a material that does not warp, crack, shrink, swell and work well. In addition, it is weighty and durable. Where can I find a cap? Growths grow on trees. Therefore, one must look for them in the forest. However, this is not so simple, because the mouthguards grow spontaneously, and only the most stubborn and big-eyed can see them. It is possible to cut the build-up only with a very sharpened saw. The most realistic way is to find burls at logging sites. There, these growths end up in waste. At logging sites, there are also capokorns, which you simply cannot find in the forest. Preparing the material for work The cap can be found at different types trees. However, the most beautiful and valuable in our area is the growth that has arisen on a birch. Products from a burl are not obtained immediately. The material requires some preliminary preparation. How to handle birch burl ? For this it is necessary to apply the steaming method. It is suitable for those growths that are not very large in size. The cap is cleaned of debris, placed in an unnecessary pan and filled with water. Then add salt to the container. Its dosage per liter of water is two heaped tablespoons. You can add more salt. She will draw the juice out of the tree. This method also uses sawdust obtained by processing resinous wood species. They need to be poured into a saucepan. Sawdust gives the burl a pleasant color that can range from yellowish pink to brownish ocher. The resins in the sawdust will add strength to the build-up and make the texture appear brighter. After boiling water, the fire should be slightly reduced and the pan should be left on the stove for six to eight hours. Remove the scale as it builds up. During the steaming process, it is necessary to monitor the volume of water in the pan and add it periodically. At the end of "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 must be repeated at least two to four times. During the last cooking, until the tree has cooled down, peel the bark from it, and upon completion put the growth in the cabinet for one to two weeks. Having finally dried out, the burl will become similar to bone in its characteristics. The material prepared in this way is excellently cut, sawn and sanded. At the same time, he will not have any extraneous odors. Making caskets Crafts made of birch burl in their beauty are not inferior to souvenirs made of Karelian birch wood, and even surpass them. This material is often used to make magnificent boxes. In the process of work, the burl boards are neatly connected to each other, making sure that the pattern of their texture is similar. A very important operation is the manufacture of wooden hinges. This step requires the precise shaping of rounded pins and grooves on the edges of the lid and body of the product. The hinges must fit tightly and accurately. Drilling holes is another difficult operation. In wooden hinges, this is most easily done with thin steel wire. At the next stage, a lock is cut into the box. The product is almost ready. It should only be putty, dry thoroughly and cover the surfaces with an alkaline varnish. After the completion of these works, the box is treated with polish and wiped with alcohol. The product is polished until the wood acquires an amber color and all the veins of its amazing texture play brightly. Decoration for a cane Using a cap, you can make a great gift for an elderly person with your own hands. The job can be done even by a beginner. On a tube or metal rod, you should alternately put on hollow cylinders, which are previously machined from a birch kapokroot. The details should be tightly fitted to each other, giving the impression of a single whole. Such a cane can be crowned with a carved or smooth birch handle. A burlap bowl Various souvenirs can be made from wooden outgrowths. Ornamental bowls are popular burl products. A rough piece 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 final drying, the product is given the required shape, it is sanded, polished and varnished.

Caps are growths and thickenings that are found on the trunks of birch, maple, oak, walnut, pine, etc. There are such influxes in places of tissue growth:

Its name comes from the Slavic "cap" - head. Indeed, the burl resembles a human head on a tree. Burl is found on the branches of old trees, on the trunks. There is also a capo root, which is a burl that has formed at the root of the tree. The largest kapo roots are up to 2m in diameter. Furniture is often made from kapo root:

As it is an unusually durable and extremely decorative material, which is valued on a par with wood of valuable species. The texture of its pattern on the cut is an interweaving of annual layers, the core of dormant buds in the form of concentric circles and dark dots. There are more dormant buds in the stem burl than in the capo root, so its texture is more expressive:

Burl is harvested only from fallen trees in sawmills. After the burl is cut off, it is freed from bark, knots, resin. Then the workpiece is boiled in a 5% solution table salt... The duration of boiling depends on the diameter of the workpiece: they boil up to 10 cm in diameter for about an hour, large workpieces are boiled for up to 3-5 hours.

Boiling is necessary to neutralize the juice inside the workpiece, so it dries faster. After boiling, until the workpiece is dry, it is cleaned of the remnants of the bark. Boiling makes the texture of the drawing more expressive. Then the workpieces are dried for several weeks indoors, or for several hours in a drying cabinet or on a battery. After that, the cap is sawn into plates. After that, give full rein to your imagination, making sure that your plans do not contradict natural beauty wood, emphasizing its structure. The inner part of the product is chosen with an adze, semicircular chisels, and cranberries. When finishing the product, excess knots are removed, trying to reveal the play of different layers of wood, they are sanded with sandpaper. Small cracks can be putty by mixing small sawdust with PVA glue. If desired, the product can be tinted with wood stains or natural dyes such as onion skins, alder cones, etc. You can cover the finished product with varnish or wax mastic.

The burl is used to make beautiful boxes, smoking pipes, chess pieces, knife handles:

And also very decorative vases, candlesticks and just sculptures for decorating the interior of natural forms are obtained from the burl:

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Instructions

From every needle-bud a large number of which concentrated on a small surface, forming a burl, 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. No layer of wood can compete with burl natural beauty, the complexity and rarity of the material. The unique birch burl is called wood malachite, burls on cherry, bird cherry and walnut... Cap is often referred to as dissolving, but this is a misnomer. Professionals can easily distinguish burl from burl - a layer of wood from the same tree, but with confused growth rings. The sag when cut resembles a marble with white veins.

The cap is divided into two types: needle cap and root cap. Needle is the rarest, it grows very slowly and only in early spring- when leaves hatch on trees, its growth stops. When making a cross-section through the burl, 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 burl. A large burl is very difficult to find and is highly prized. The cap-spine is similar in structure to the needle root, but there is a difference in the wood grain pattern, which is darker and larger. It develops on roots and in the root zone, on trees growing on moist soil - near streams, swamps and along river banks.

Even because of the large and beautiful burl, it is not worth spoiling a living tree. Moreover, to find this natural anomaly not difficult - many 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 get burls from them. If the need to remove the burl from a living tree is very great, this is done starting with late autumn and until early spring, while the sap is slowed down in the tree. For cutting, a saw with universal teeth is taken, the saw 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, which are driven 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 saw cut made in the spring - this cannot stop the movement of sap, and the tree will inevitably hurt a lot.

The burl lends itself well to processing, it does not crack, shrink or swell, moreover, its strength is several times higher than the wood of the tree on which it grows. The best way use - immediately after collection, clean the burl from the bark and cut it into planks with a thickness of 3-5 mm, so that later it can be used for the production of caskets or mosaics. In this version, the use of a mouthguard is more optimal, and when making various bowls, vases and bowls, most of the material is lost. The cap gives the most interesting pattern with a chord cut, as a rule, there are many points, each of which is surrounded by rings of a different shade, and stains of different shades flow between the rings.

Sources:

• Birch growth

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 burls are sawn and processed.

Instructions

If the burl is quite large, and, according to the idea, it is possible to make not one thing from it, but several, it is sawn before processing. Most often, the burl is cut into plates of various thicknesses: the thickness depends on what products are planned to be made. To obtain the best pattern on all workpieces, the angle of the cut 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 burl is easier to saw. But before making it into a product, the burl is steamed so that the drawing appears completely and can be shown in the work. It is best to steam the caps in small ones, you can do this in. You will need an unnecessary pan of a suitable size, the dyes emitted by the wood will be difficult to wash off. The sawdust is placed in a thick layer on the bottom, then a burl is laid on them - but not close, there should be half a centimeter of the gap between the blanks. They also lay on top with sawdust, but not in such a thick layer.

They are poured with salt water, but mainly the bottom layer, so that the water only touches the workpieces, not covering them entirely. Salt is taken per liter, about a tablespoon, a little more. Close with a lid and put on a very slow heat. After boiling, the workpieces should be steamed for 6-10 hours, water should be added to the pan periodically, checking every hour. Then remove the pan from heat and leave to cool. The workpieces are removed from the cooled sawdust, the sawdust is washed off them with a stream of water, left to dry, turning over to dry evenly every few hours. Drying usually takes 3-4 days. After the workpieces are dry, you need to repeat the digestion process, then dry again, and so at least 3 times. If, after three steaming, the bark itself does not fall off the blanks, you need to remove it. After steaming the blanks of the burl last time and, after removing the bark, leave the wood for final drying. It is best to dry them outdoors, turning them over for the first 3 days every few hours, then once a day. After that, it is a good idea to dry the workpieces in a special drying cabinet 2-3 times.

Large pieces one-piece mouthguards larger than a soccer ball are not suitable for handling in this manner. During the cooking or drying process, the caps will surely crack, and maybe burst. Figures made of a solid burl are processed in the same way as any wood - they are polished, varnished. Digestion is best for a mouth guard that has been cut into thin slices. When steamed, these blanks are colored with natural dyes in a wide variety of shades, from light golden to chocolate brown. After this lengthy treatment, you can proceed to further improve the mouth guard. Finished products are coated with alcohol or acrylic varnishes. You can also use nitro varnishes. Before coating, the surface is sanded with emery - first large, and then the smallest, and wiped from wood dust with a soft cloth.

Sources:

• Trap processing

The cap is also called "witch's broom" - it is a small formation on a tree, of a benign nature. Basically it looks like a drop, from which thin twigs grow, gathering in a bunch. In the cross section, you can see a structure of catchy knots. The mouthguard processing is not easy, although it is still amenable to grinding and polishing. As a result of the work it looks very attractive.

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

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

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

Two identical burls cannot be found in nature, even the halves differ from each other. They can be seen on the set different trees... In our latitudes, the birch burl is very much appreciated. It grows not large, the maximum diameter is the same as that of a large plate.

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

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

Correct processing of birch burls

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

• Large mouth guards are almost always sawn, since several items can be made from it at once. The cap is divided into several plates, the thickness of each depends on which item is planned to be made.
• To make an excellent drawing in the future, you should think about the cutting angle in advance. The more sleepers on the cut, the better.
• When the burl is fresh, the pattern appears weak, but cutting is much easier.
• That the drawing manifested itself in full beauty, before making the item, the cap should be steamed well.
• You can steam the drip at home, fine sawdust is suitable for this. For the procedure, take the container of the required size (it is recommended to use the old pan, since the dyes that will appear cannot be washed off). Sawdust is spread in a generous layer on the bottom, a cap is placed on top. It is impossible to lay tightly, there must be a gap of at least 0.5 centimeters. Sawdust is poured on top in a thin layer.
• The laid out drip is poured into the pan with well-salted water (mainly the bottom layer). The water should not completely cover the workpieces, but only touch them slightly. Salt is taken with the calculation of 1 tbsp. l. for 1 liter of water. If there is a little more, it doesn't matter.
• The prepared burl is covered with a lid and put on a small fire. As soon as the mixture boils, it is scolded for about 10 hours, and the mouthpiece is allowed to steam well. To avoid trouble, they look into the container every hour, add water if necessary.
• As time passes, the container is removed from the heat and left to cool.
• After cooling, the workpieces are washed under running water and left to dry. So that they dry out evenly, they should be turned over every few hours. The drying period lasts about 3-4 days.
• When the workpieces 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 preferable to be carried out outdoors. The first day is turned over quite often, on the third day 1-2 times will be enough.
• It is great if it is possible to carry out the final drying in a special oven several times.
• If the mouthpiece is very large (larger than a basketball), this type of treatment will not work. The drying or steaming process can lead to cracks and other damage.
• Digested as basically sliced. Whole birch growths are treated as common tree- by sanding and varnishing.
• Upon evaporation, the burl plates acquire the shade of the secreted 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 sanded with coarse emery, then fine. Wipe off wood dust with a soft cloth.
• The drawing will appear in all its glory if the cap is treated with wax.

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

The work took

2nd place

How the work was created.
First, a newspaper mass was made, from which the product was "molded". They diluted the wallpaper glue and smeared it one newspaper after another, creating a newspaper-glue pile. They picked up 8-10 layers and set aside, then smeared on the next batch.

They missed 3 "newspaper piles" and then began to tear them into small pieces... The result is a sticky newspaper mass.

Olya formed a duck's neck from it. The newspaper "sausage" lay on the newspaper. We broke through one layer of newspaper and wrapped the duck neck with newspaper strips. In this form, it was dried. It dried for a very long time on a heating battery.

from it she blinded the duck's body and also covered it with newspaper strips, and put it to dry.

When it was dry, the parts of the duck were connected with glue.

The dried work was once again glued with a newspaper on PVA, leveling the irregularities. Then they were primed.

Then they covered it with beige gouache with PVA and allowed it to dry well (I didn't photograph this moment, because Olya had already done it without me.) When the beige paint dried out, Olya painted over with brown acrylic paint on top and did not let it dry to the end, starting with a rag, as it were wash the paint, and this created an imitation of the mouth guard. In my opinion, she did it.

Cap is a rare, very hard and beautiful material with an unusual grain pattern that looks like marble. The meaning of the word "cap" is not known for certain. According to one version, it goes back to the Proto-Indo-European word "kaput" (head). This version is supported by the fact that the shape of burl growth found on the branches (branch burl) and the trunk of old trees (trunk burl) may resemble the shape of a human head.
According to another version, the word "kap" comes from the verb "to drip", since the burl outgrowth is often an influx on the trunks, branches and roots of trees, which occurs in places of abundant development of shoots and overgrowth of closely-seated buds.

Burl or wood build-up is an amazing material. It is called forest porphyry or wood malachite. The largest museum collections in Russia have preserved fine examples of burl ware. Such dishes in Russia in the XVI - XVII centuries called "onion". She flaunted at royal feasts next to gilded and silver.

Today, the burl serves as a material for the manufacture of art and decorative items.

Kapu master Toinov Alexander Gavrilovich at the annual St. George fair, which is always held in our city in August.

The master does not immediately start making crafts from the burl. Initially, the influx was leached into hot water, and then steamed properly in cast iron with wood sawdust. And then the pale cut of the burl showed the master an intricate pattern. After that, the mouth guard was given time to lie down on the stove and dry. Drying time depends on the thickness of the bead and the temperature of the heated oven. Usually the burl is ready for carpentry processing in a month or two. And then the ancient planes, chisels, drills were used, but only like toys, reduced.

From the burl - this material of extraordinary strength and beauty - a wide variety of crafts (boxes, cigarette cases, frames, etc.) have long been made. Fine examples of burl, or, as it was called, "onion" dishes, dated from the 16th-17th centuries, are kept in the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin, as well as in the Zagorsk State Historical and Art Museum-Reserve. Looking at them, you will not immediately think that they were made with an ax, a scraper and a knife from a piece of wood, or more precisely, a build-up on a birch.

The masters of the North work with a birch burl.

The cap lends itself well to processing, does not warp, does not crack, does not swell, does not shrink, it is durable and weighty. The thinner the pattern and the larger the burl, the more expensive it is. The burl layer thickness may vary. It is known that in the first half of the 19th century, the cost of a burl weighing twenty pounds (just over 8 kg) was equal to the cost of a thoroughbred bull. V pre-revolutionary Russia cap was worth its weight in gold - 70 rubles per kilogram in dry form. Kapa was legendary as ginseng. Finding him in the forest was considered happiness. In the Vyatka province, the birch burl was the most widespread, the most beautiful in design and color. Thanks to this material, an interesting carpentry and turning craft arose.
Grigory Makarov, a carpenter from the district town of Slobodskoy, who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century, is considered the ancestor of burl business on the Vyatka land. He made caskets and snuff boxes of strict geometric shapes and correct proportions from thin burl plates, corresponding to the prevailing classicism style in those years. But his main merit was the addition of wooden hinges to the products, which he adopted from a "curious little thing" - a Scottish snuffbox that accidentally fell into his hands. The unraveled secret of making "shalners" Makarov managed to carry out, having mastered the most complex operations... Precise manufacturing of teeth and corresponding recesses of the mechanism, as well as drilling with a thin wire - for a long time entered the arsenal of the next generations of kapovschik masters.
The Vyatka master Semyon Ivanovich Bronnikov, the author of a unique product - wooden pocket watch, the case and body of which are made of burl. Over time, Semyon Bronnikov's sons, Nikolai and Mikhail, began to help in his work. They took orders for the manufacture of watches from different parts of Russia. The peak of glory of the Bronnikov watchmakers was the World Exhibition in Vienna (1837). Members of the Kapovschik dynasty Bronnikovs also successfully participated in subsequent well-known exhibitions, such as the Nizhny Novgorod Trade, Industrial and Art Exhibition (1896) and the All-Russian Exhibition in St. Petersburg (1902).
Material taken from sites:
http://www.idea-master.ru/Obrabotka_kapa_Podelki_iz_kapa.html
http://www.stfond.ru/articles.htm?id=11394