# Cost to purchase Burls??????



## tbfoto (Oct 16, 2017)

Tomorrow I'm going to go see a local guy about buying some maple burls he has. They have not been cut up. Simply cut off the tree. Here are a few photos of some of what he has. He says some are hollow and some are not. He is going to leave it pretty much up to me to make an offer on them. He said he has a lot of them. How much would you pay for a maple burl the size of say a basketball? Or smaller ones about the size of a softball? I've never bought a whole burl before. Heck...I've only turned a couple of real nice burl blanks before.
I've read that some pay per pound. I've also read that some cut into a burl to only find plain looking wood......no burl. So...how much would be fair for a raw maple burl?
EDIT...not sure why that last image isn't showing up the same as the others.


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## magpens (Oct 16, 2017)

Those are burls ???????


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## Sprung (Oct 16, 2017)

What I'm seeing there isn't burl - but is where the tree grows over and heals itself after a branch is broken or cut off - and that third pic is especially a dead giveaway of that. They may have a little swirly grain, but they definitely aren't burl and most certainly aren't worth paying burl prices for. I've had some of them given to me and I ended up burning them - for the extremely low level of figure in them and how much waste there was from the broken/cut branch having rotted inside, it wasn't worth my time to cut them up and try to get a few blanks out of them.


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## mark james (Oct 16, 2017)

... And if they would be burls, I'd inquire if they were harvested from dead trees (OK), or from live trees (soon to be dead...).  Just a thought.


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## Dehn0045 (Oct 16, 2017)

Along with what others have already posted, I will add that maple burl tends to be on the lower end of burl pricing.  But in the world of burl the prices can vary dramatically based on quality (or at least the quality perceived by the seller).  If you are looking for pieces to cut to pen blanks, I posted an eBay seller in the market research forum who has the best prices I have found for maple burl.


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## Talltim (Oct 16, 2017)

The second picture looks like a thanksgiving turkey that got overheated. 

Might be some good pens in it though.


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## MRDucks2 (Oct 16, 2017)

Lol. I see the turkey!


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## tbfoto (Oct 17, 2017)

Ok, thanks for your opinions. I too thought that some of the photos looked like where limbs were cut off and the tree heeled. I’ll have to just wait until I look at them in person tonight. I’m not expecting real exotic burls at all but thought it might be worth 15 minutes to go see what he has. Even if I could get just a few pen blanks out of it.


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## thewishman (Oct 17, 2017)

Yeah - they all look like caps from broken limbs. Might want to just offer a pen made with that wood.


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## tbfoto (Oct 17, 2017)

Ok, so I drove out and took a look. Yes, some of them were parts of trees where limbs were cut off. Others were indeed "burls" or bumps cut off the sides of trees. Not sure how much if any grain pattern will be in them until I cut through them. I am not expecting much if any. They get them all the time as they are a father/son/grand daughter operation. The father and son harvest dead trees for the lumber and the grand daughter took charge of the burls. I think I was her first customer to buy burls.  I bought a couple of them mainly for the curiosity of it. They threw in a flat piece of highly spalted "scrap". It may turn out to be the gem in the bunch. It's pretty soft but I suppose it could be stabilized and made hard (I've never stabilized anything). It looks like I could get 4-5 good blanks out of it. Anyway, I'll have to figure out how to go about cutting these up and then let then dry out. I hoping that near the actual round sections, the wood grain will look nice.


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## Dehn0045 (Oct 17, 2017)

If nothing else, it looks like your having fun!  Hope you get something interesting.  Also, maybe they’ll give you a call (and deal) when they stumble on a monster grade A burl.


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## tbfoto (Oct 17, 2017)

I was going to wait until the weekend to cut this but I couldn't wait to find out so I fired up the band saw and cut two 1" slices out of it. Then I cut those slices up into useable blanks. I think this is going to be ok. In fact I think the grain looks real nice. Here is what I harvested out of those two 1" thick slices. I think I can get another 4-5 slices out of this one burl.


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