cherry burl

[lladnarbrown]

I just had a cherry burl cut into slabs 1-1/2 inch thick. The largest is about 24" dia. Question is there anything I can do to keep it from cracking when it dries?

[Howard Lobb]

Yes! The methods I have found are first get it covered. Leave the bark on. I would place it in a cool dark area where the air moves at least a little. I stack the burls in sequence to the way they where cut using thin stickers (strips of wood) in between each slab, if it is large. If the burl is small, I do the same thing only in a triple layered brown PAPER sack and closed leave it for a year. I generally cut the burl off the log and don't slice it I dry them by covering the cut side with LOG SEALER and any areas where the bark has been damaged, and toss it in a dark cool dry place and forget it for at least a year. Slabbing or cutting the burl makes it harder to dry flat. Then I waste a lot of material truing the slab. Weight on the wood helps but still they have a tenancy to warp. I have found that the interlocking swirls of grain in a burl can have a lot of tension that shows up in the drying by warp-age. I have used Log sealer on thin slabs like you are talking about and because the burl cut like this is now ALL end grain in erratic pattern it has a habit of wrapping radically and difficult to prevent checking. I have learned to work with those splits when they happen. I have a good percentage of check free burls this way but no guarantee. Hope that this helps... H