First catch of the year

[qbilder]

For Christmas my wife & I bought ourselves a new Polaris Ranger 800. The thing is like a miniature pickup truck. It goes anywhere & has a bed, which means I can bring my saw & leave with burls!!! We spent this weekend touring the trails & of course, me being me, snatched a few goodies. I got two nice oak burls and a few juniper burls. It's tough to see in the pic, but the bigger juniper burl is loaded with ropey figure. It looks like a bunch of deep wrinkles, like a raisin. It's different than typical burls that have all the swirly sprouts (aka birds eyes). I see the ropey figure often in bubinga, but rarely in domestic woods except for juniper. Will show pics of it milled when I mill it. The big one is about 4' & change long by around 18-20". All of the burls will be used for my cues. The twigs above them are about 3" diameter or so, mountain locust, twisted with diamond shapes much like Alaskan diamond willow. My wife debarks them and uses tenon cutters to use them as table legs for slabs.

Here's a pic of juniper burl in a cue. The orange stuff:

And here's a few mulberry slabs I got from my neighbor's tree. They are only about 5.5' but will make interesting tables. I cut them 3" thick. The log had been sitting next to my shop for about a year, and is now leaning against it, under the roof overhang. I plan to use black walnut 4x4 legs and brace under one of them. The bright yellow mulberry should contrast well with the chocolate brown walnut. Been a week since I milled and the color is darkening quick. Looks like osage when fresh.

Good start to the year. This little bit of burl will get used as accent in countless cues and make me lotsa mullah Can't just run out & buy stuff like this. Easier & more rewarding to hunt for & mill it myself.

 

[mitch95100]

So how do you like the ranger?, The old mans thinking about geting one in the browning edition, ive drove em before and im dyin to get one they can do just about anything.

 

[qbilder]

So how do you like the ranger?, The old mans thinking about geting one in the browning edition, ive drove em before and im dyin to get one they can do just about anything.

So far so good. Only had it out three times, maybe 15hrs., so it's too early to say yet. But I will say it's a very nice ride for a woods machine & I haven't found a real challenge for it yet. Been going up & down hills, rocks, etc., loading crap in it, and it just goes. That Browning edition is the stone cold nuts!!! Very nice machine. Ours is the normal 800xp with power steering. Supposedly the power steering is borrowed from Fiat. Smooth steer.