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by csours 565 days ago
I spent a week burl hunting with my uncle in Alaska. Good times! (except for the mosquitos)
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I used to find burls with a neighbor. He was an amazing wood turner.

He told me to do it for extra money, so one summer I went off on my own to start cutting them.

And that's the story of how I learned that sometimes burls form when a tree grows around a fence post. Alternate title: Stihl chainsaws can't cut steel fencing.

We have quite a few nice looking burls on our property and its the exact same story.

Most of them are old fence lines where someone decided attaching barbed wife directly to gum and hickory trees was a good idea.

There's that ever-so short moment between "Man, this wood is hard!" and "Oh, crap"
i use a metal detector. some of these trees can be a stash[cashe] and you may encounter things hidden long ago, most of them not good for your chain, some of them not good for you.