The Duke of Burl
We’ve been to the UK a couple times, and on each visit, like the woodworker that I am, my interest exceeds the typical tourist and focuses on wood and woodworking
Once again, I enjoyed a trip to London, and once again I’ve expanded my woodworking horizons.
We’ve been to the UK a couple times, and on each visit, like the woodworker that I am, my interest exceeds the typical tourist and focuses on wood and woodworking. This trip was no exception. From furniture to architecture, I saw as much as I could. Right now, though, I’m talking about something that scratches my natural woodworking interests — trees.
After the first day or two of walking around London, I realized that one particular species of tree is everywhere. As with earlier trips, the things that attract me most about the trees there are the burls. (Or “burrs,” as the Brits call them.)
Called the “London plane,” it’s a sycamore hybrid that is favored in big-city environments for a very simple reason: It’s extremely tolerant of air pollution. Whereas other hardwoods don’t do well, the London plane seems to thrive, producing shade, color and beauty wherever it appears. London is a big, smoggy city so it’s really no surprise to see so many. (New York City is another major metropolis where the tree is becoming common.)
London planes are also prone to forming burls — lots and lots of them. Out of every five or six trees, it would be unusual not to see at least one. The burls run the gamut from single small ones on a trunk, to dozens of them covering the tree, sometimes huge.
Intrigued, I started Googling around after returning home, and found that the burls are extremely nice looking, as you can see in the above image. A bit more searching found a good bit of it on eBay, and I wasted no time in buying some turning blanks and a few small boards. It’s from a UK-based seller, not surprisingly, so I felt right at home paying in pounds.
Not sure exactly what I’m going to create with it, but I’ll share it with you when I do.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.
