Burl Ive's got to plane

[Prashun Patel]

I have the opportunity to purchase a couple of oak burls from a very nice person (he's probably reading this )

Anyway, I'll have to flatten these possibly by hand. Does anyone have experience scrubbing and flattening oak burl? Is it difficult vs flat sawn lumber?

[Pat Barry]

All too cute with the titles these days... but Roy demonstrated using toothing planes for walnut burl on the show this weekend and he followed that with a card scraper.

[Jim Koepke]

Hitting it with a scrub plane might not be the best start.

Some drawers in my shop are made with pieces of burl, not sure of the species.

Shop Drawers.jpg

The faces on the ends were overly thick so re-sawing made for the book matched look. These are small pieces. A blade was sharpened to the max. The smoothing was done with the lightest of touch and the thinest of cut.

Your pieces will likely be bigger. It is likely each piece will have its own challenges. Candy, my wife, has done a lot of burl work with her father. She is a believer in power sanding. Thought this morning while the internet was down we watched Salvage Dogs. She saw one of the guys using a large planer on some old wood and kind of gave me the feeling she wants one.

Each piece of burl will be slightly different.

Another thought is every job starts with the finish. Some will use a thick finish, some want a light finish. Think of how your work will be finished and work with that in mind.

jtk

[Prashun Patel]

These pieces are 29" x 40" x 2.5" thick.

I'll want them much thinner, about 1". I may just rip them and resaw them on my bandsaw and then plane them with power. These wouldn't be processed by hand for the love of it. I'm interested in being practical for this project.

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

I tried to flatten a 100cmx50cm piece of elm burl with a scrub plane. It was about 2 cm uneven. I really tried but in the end I gave up and took it too a large thicknesser at a ship yard.

[Jim Belair]

I have the opportunity to purchase a couple of oak burls from a very nice person (he's probably reading this )

A bit late but it'll still be a Holly Jolly Christmas purchase.

[Brian Holcombe]

Prashun, you may want to leave them thick. Burl is not particularly strong and could break pretty easily at 1" thick. It's similar to planing end grain, so camber helps, sharp blades help and light cuts help.

[Stewie Simpson]

A toothing plane is ideal for working the grain on Burl timber; fine toothed.

[Tim Cooper Louisiana]

Prashun. Your topic headings are the best

[Prashun Patel]

I tried scrub hand planing these into flatness for about 30 seconds before Kazoo appeared on my right shoulder to tell me I was an idiot and my elbows would never survive the ordeal.

So, I resorted to a router planing sled.

This did a great, albeit messy, job of flattening the slabs to consistent thickness. However, they now require some smoothing.

I am going to try 4 tools: 1) LN#4 2) Veritas Small BU smoother 25 deg, tight mouth, 3) LN LAJack toothed blade, 4) Belt sander....

[Brian Holcombe]

LN #4, if that doesn't work then Lagavulin 16 yr.

[john zulu]

If you want to use hand tools. I would use the Jack plane with tooth blade configuration. Then plane down with a high bevel blade. Finishing with a smoothing plane. The last 2 operation you would need to read the grain as you plane. Not that easy to work on. I would like to say a scraper but I don't think it would work well for this situation unless the wood is hard.

[Mel Fulks]

I try to just be prepared for some sanding and don't let "A Little Bitty Tear Let Me Down".

[Bill McNiel]

I would, and have, use my router sled then belt sand similar pieces. It will take you 5-10 minutes. Sacrilege on this Forum but it is easily the fastest way to get quality results IMHO.

[Normand Leblanc]

It's always hard to say by looking at a picture. You seem to have mostly end grain but a few areas do have reverse grain. I don't think I would use a LA plane for this at all. I would try a regular 45° bedded plane like your LN no.4 with a closely set capiron.

In the end, a belt sander will be the quickest route if flatness is not a great concern.