The Burl Hunter Vol 1 | Page 6

Dormant bud burls form
through an explosion of early bud
development that never quite
makes it through the bark. All the
buds sprout and clash within,
causing more shoots to get started
and early ones to become
dormant. The buds never get past
the stage of early development,
growing more in width than in

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length, causing hard, dense wood. This type of
burl is more prevalent in cherry and walnut and
also occurs in certain elm, maple, oak and
white birch species."
The third classification, which I call swirleye burl, is a combination of the other two.
Often these are the most complex of all burl
formation, especially when the patterns are
balanced. It is as if the first two burl grain
patterns have been melted and mixed
together, then frozen. The dormant buds, or
eyes, are combined with the rest of the
swirly grain."
After working with hundreds of burls
during the past fifteen years, I know that
some grain patterns frequently recur within a
given species. Yet on cutting into a new burl, I can
still be surprised by an entirely new configuration."
Permission to republish this  excerpt from
Sculpting Wood: Contemporary Tools and
Te c h n i q u e s , b y M a r k L i n d q u i s t ( D a v i s
Publications, 1986), was granted by Lindquist
Studios."

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