Zeke’s Burl
Recently we had an open house/shop tour and one of our neighbors came over to it. Of course living here in the western foothills of Maine, neighbor is a relative term. They live on the ridge opposite of us, so probably 3/4 of a mile away by road. Anyways Zeke and Joyce came over to see what we do. Zeke is a logger by trade and chainsaw woodcarver when he has time. Zeke brought a couple of burls that he’s had squirreled away somewhere. They both had some cracking on them but appeared to be dry. So being the adventurous woodturner that I am I took the largest of the two burls and mounted it between centers on my lathe, to start working it and to see if the piece was something that I could actually work safely. Fortunately the cracking stopped about an inch in and the resulting piece is a beautiful bowl. I believe this burl is a Birch burl but am not 100 percent sure on that. The bowl is 7 1/4 inches in diameter by 2 5/8 inches tall with a 1/4 inch wall thickness throughout the bowl.
Makes me wonder what the second burl will look like when I get some time to turn it.



