Spruce and Birch Burl?

A

AlaskanHunter

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Nov 23, 2013
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I have access to quite a bit of spruce burl. I've never heard of or seen it used before for knife handles, is there a good reason for this? I'm quite sure its too soft as is, but could it be stabilized? Or would the pitch react poorly to the process? What are the possibilities with birch burl for the same?
 
I cant comment on spruce burl

Birch burl is hit or miss. It can be full of bark and be usesless, or it can have a greaty figure and be mauser birch.
 
I've seen spruce burl used in country/mountain man crafts, but not on a knife handle.
Those are root burls, and can be OK, but are soft and may have voids, bark, sand/rocks, and can vary a lot in looks. It would need to dry very well, be stabilized ( and maybe dyed), and used on a light use blade. I would compare it to buckeye burl as for strength.
 
What I'm looking at are burls on the spruce trees trunk. I never realized that you could find them on the roots. Their size can range from that of a golf ball to larger than two beach balls. I've used some of the larger ones to make coffee tables before. Figure is rather random, sometimes really nice, oftentimes rather boring. Bark "inclusions" are relatively uncommon, but pitch pockets are common enough to be a pain. What I don't know is if it would accept the stabilizing process, would it gain enough weight to be useable, and will the pitch adversely affect the process? If no one knows, maybe I'll have to send a block or two in to K&G as an experiment.


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Lots of people use birch burls around here for lots of applications, and I've seen some real pretty knife handles made out of them. Never thought about spruce though.
 
I have about 600 lbs of birch burl and have no issues getting it stabilized. It can be rather bland on figure, but mine has tons of spalt also which adds to the beauty. I have a
feeling the spruce would be too sappy to have stabilized.
 
I've used a couple of pieces of birch burl that were stabilized by WSSI. They took to stabilizing well and I think they looked pretty nice.



 
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