Removing Bark From Maple Burl

[Gene Hintze]

I am going to begin work on a maple burl piece and would like to leave the outside natural but without the bark. Any suggestions on how to efficiently remove the bark and expose the spiky white wonders beneath?

[Tim Rinehart]

Pressure washer and a dental pick.

[Reed Gray]

Best way to loose the bark, decide that you want to keep it on, then it seems to fall off magically. Just the opposite for removing, decide you want to keep it on. But, seriously, you can pressure wash most of it off before turning, or after turning, dental picks.

robo hippy

[Mike Cruz]

Got time? Got patience? Grab a beer (or two) and an awl, and pick away... Now, if it is still fresh and on like glue...different story.

[Nathan Hawkes]

Reed's advice is about the best you could hope for!! And unfortunately true! A cheap set of dental picks should be in every turner's tool box.

[neil mackay]

I blast mine off with a high pressure washer, I think its a round 1200 psi

[Richard Coers]

Time of year is not in your favor either. Bark removal in the spring is much easier. The cambium is soft, and the bark will come off in chunks. Fall and winter, not so much. I've never had luck with a pressure washer to remove bark. What has worked well for me is to strike straight into the bark with a hammer. The blow softens the bond between the cambium and the bark, and I can get it to fall off. I had a bunch of siberian elm burl, so bought a small scale jack hammer from Harbor Freight. I squared off the chisel, and let it bounch around on the bark. It worked great!

[Reed Gray]

I have seen the pounding method for bark removal before. I tried it on some pieces and it didn't work too well. The time I saw it, the tree was sick, and had been down a while, so was probably some what loose before they started. I have also heard that the best way to get worm frass out of the worm holes is to use the pressure washer as well.

robo hippy

[Montgomery Scott]

I have a ~3' diameter maple burl I've been working at for a while removing the bark. I just use a small flat blade screwdriver to pry off the dry bark and an awl to srape out any small pieces. It will be a long process, but the results are pretty good.

[Gene Hintze]

Thanks to all for the advice and I did get the burl debarked. This is a burl cap about 13" in diameter and anywhere from 1/2 to 3" thick. I used a bit of everyone's advice and here is the process that worked for me. First I soaked the thing in a pail of water for for about 30 hours hoping to loosen the bark. Then I fired up the pressure washer (2600 psi) and started blasting away. After about ten minutes no bark came off and I thought it was time for plan B. Got out the hammer put the burl on the driveway and proceeded to beat that thing like a rented mule. Hit it with the pressure washer a gain and viola, some small chunks of bark came off. Periodically I would stop the pressure washing and pick at the bark with a small screwdriver which loosened more small bits. After 3 hours of pressure washing and picking the burl cap was debarked. That is some gnarly landscape under burl bark. It is now soaking in the DNA bath and then I will run it through the entire drying protocol. After all that work I am hopeful it will survive the drying process so I can make something useful out of it. Thanks again for your helpful advice.