Wood Burls

[Stoney Creek]

Hey guys. I've been cleaning up my grand parents farm which is mine now. I've identified several cherry burls and a sassafras alomg with locust and ironwood, two white oak and one dead american chestnut. Some of these are huge but i can probably handle them with the fel on my tractor. Now, how do i cut and preserve these to dry and sell them for turkey calls. Leave them whole and seal the ends with paint..... or have them sawn into pieces and sealed or just leave them for a few years to dry in my barn. Any advice would be appreciated as it would be a shame to just burn them in a brush pile......Thanks Don, by the way i cut a board out of the Chestnut burl and a friend turned some blanks out of it, beautiful fiigure along with color in it

[M,Yingling]

If you had enough logs i would find some one with a portable band mill come right to the farm and cut them to lumber seal ends stash in the barn for a while

[lightsoutcalls]

If you had enough logs i would find some one with a portable band mill come right to the farm and cut them to lumber seal ends stash in the barn for a while

I would have to agree.  I would suggest that you seal the ends of the logs or blocks of wood as soon as they hit the ground.  You can come back within a matter of hours and see the ends beginning to check on some woods.  If you can, I would wait until the leaves fall off of the trees before cutting them if they are still alive.  The sap should be up in the trees right now, which means there will be more moisture in the wood, which means increased chances for checking/cracking as they dry.

When you have the wood cut, be sure to "sticker" stack it.  This is where you use several strips of wood (I prefer 1"x1" cedar strips) between layers of boards. This allows air to circulate around the boards and allows them to dry quicker.  The general rule of air drying is 1 year per 1" of thickness on the boards. 

[handcannon]

Sounds like Mike and Wendell nailed it.

[MarkJM]

If you had enough logs i would find some one with a portable band mill come right to the farm and cut them to lumber seal ends stash in the barn for a while

X2 thats what we had done. wish we would have one more when the mill was up and running