I thought...

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No it is not a burl. The masur birch develops when the tree is subjected to stress of some sort. Can be insects, radiation or something like that. The whole of the wood is affected i.e. right through the branch or trunk.
 
Yeah.. I did too, but it wasn't until you posted the answer that I found anything to do with Masur birch being caused by ambrosia beetles. Everything I found just showed infestation of beetles, and everything I found about Masur Birch only referred to burls.

Great question.
 
Ambrosia in maple is another type of beetle altogether. If you go to Google and type "birch, beetle, turning blanks" you will find of whole host of info on it. This question was only answered correctly by 15 people, so it must have been harder than I thought![:D]
 
We had a demo at our woodturning club where the demonstrator used large pieces of masur birch he had obtained from Craft Supplies UK. He told us the figure came from the trees reaction to a particular beetle.
Originally posted by DCBluesman
<br />A beetle (Agromyzia carbonaria) causes the figure in Masur birch.
He also told us that masur birch has been found in areas subjected to high levels of radiation. The examples he gave were Chernobyl and areas of Russia where nuclear testing had taken place. As I am typing this I have to admit it does not sound very likely. Who would collect wood from irradiated areas?

Unless it was really pretty wood.....
 
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