?? For Osage gurus..

[wapiti1997]

Well, I took the plunge and cut a tree today.  I was cutting firewood and noticed this one might work..
 

I noticed it has a little bit of twist..
 

I split 6 staves, they are 80" long. Took 20 minutes to split them out, much easier than I thought!
   


 

It was so wet from the snow that I did not seal the ends yet. I left the bark on, and stored them standing up in a corner.  I plan to seal  the ends with wood glue.

My question is; Is the twist going to be a problem, and do these staves look OK, for selfbows?  I've never tried yet to make a bow...

[wapiti1997]

Also, what is the soonest you'd recommend working on one?  Everything I've read so far says at least a year, anyone with contrary advice?  

I have a couple of seasoned black locust staves to work in the meantime...

[George Tsoukalas]

You should seal the ends. One of the pics showed split ends. You can remove the bark and sapwood. Seal the backs right away. YOu can chase a ring and rough out a stave. It will dry faster but don't rush it. Osage wants to be at 8-10% moisture content and that takes awhile. Jawge

[Dean Marlow]

Those look like good ones to me. As far as twist or warping goes Osage is one of the best when it comes to useing a heat gun to straighten. To each there own on when to take the bark and sap off. If you keep the bark on for very long spray them with insecticide for borers. Seal the ends good. Put them in a nice dry place that doesn't get real hot in the summer. As far as a finished bow I wait one year on a stave to make a bow. That is useing natural drying.Probably could do it quicker if you go ahead and work it down to floor tiller. Dean

[Eric Krewson]

I have cut a lot of osage so here goes:
The rings are incredibly close with a less than desirable early wood-late wood ratio.

If you haven't made a bow before you may not be able to chase a ring on the back because of the tight rings. I use this type of wood for bamboo backed bows. If you have problems chasing a ring you could back your bow with rawhide or sinew and still make a nice bow.

The twist is really easy to take out with heat after your staves have dried.

Bottom line, not the best bow wood but it still has possibilities.

[wapiti1997]

Thanks for the input everyone.  

Eric, here is a better end view.  The rings are tight, but it's about a 10" diameter tree at the base.  So you want thicker "spongy" rings?  I would think the tighter rings would be more stable?

 

[wapiti1997]

I split it in half using the already weak split, then split the halves in 1/3s.

I noticed the really tight rings close to the bark, but there are some wider ones an inch in..

I guess I should look for trees in more open areas, where they grow faster, unfortunately they also grow lots of limbs..

[Osagetree]

Looks as good as any of my staves!

Though you will have to get to one of those thicker rings for the backing.

I leave my bark on until I'm ready to make a bow but I do spray for bugs as stated above.

Lay them babies down so the they dry even. At 80" you won't have toworry about checks on the ends. You can cut'em off and still have a long enough stave.

You're right about the tree in the open. They have better rings most of the time.

Read up here on the TG until they cure. By then you'll be well versed....

[Eric Krewson]

Great bow wood;

 

[scrub-buster]

You want thicker dark rings and thin light rings.  Eric's examples are excellent.  Those would be very easy to chase a ring on.

[Osagetree]

:rolleyes:   8 to 10 rings per inch is more than sufficient.

Not sure about Central KY but, I find osage few and far between with rings like in Eric's pics here in Southern Ohio. There may be some here but not where I can cut'em. Sometimes you have to live with what is available.

The tree in Eric's pic appears to have been growing in the open sun for about 17 years. As the brush and competing trees shaded it out the rings began to get smaller. Real nice wood.

With 8 to 10 rings per inch, rough shaping the bow is easier than those with 1/4" rings as you can use the belly rings as a visual to get an even tapper on each limb. This makes tillering easier as you get real close to even before putting it on the long string and tiller tree. I find I get so close with this process sometimes I can go straight to the short string and about 4" of brace before fine tillering begins.

I only measure and mark the handle, fades and length of limbs. I rarely mark depth or thickness because I use the belly rings as a visual to get close to my target weight. At 8 to 10 rings per inch I end up with about 4 rings at the tips of the limbs. (I'm talking flat bow design here)

I can't see early age man cutting your tree with stone tools and then discarding it beacause it had thin rings. Their 1st thought would probably be something like,,, where'd I stash that bundle of sinew!

[PEARL DRUMS]

This is the hair splittinist hobby you will ever be a part of. And its full of strong opinions, mine being one of them. No its not thee perfect represenation of the species, but its just fine. Be happy friend, you have some osage staves in storage!

[Black Mockingbird]

I wood reduce one or two down to bow dimensions and just bending,seal the back with shellac...then let em sit for a few months and they'll prob be ready to work..and in the meantime practice chasing rings n making bows with that locust if its ready to go. Those will make you selfbows just fine...n smaller ringed osage is better than no osage. What makes great osage is not the size of the latewood ring but the ratio of earlywood to latewood rings. For example a stave with 1/16" thick latewood with literally paper thin early wood is better than a stave with 1/8" latewood and an 1/8" earlywood.

[wapiti1997]

I'm certainly not against backing with sinew or rawhide, if that would be more of a "sure" thing with the more tricky character of my staves.  I'd like to have a copperhead skinned selfbow, that'd be neat.

I've been looking for straight osage with no limbs as my "targets" for staves.  I have several straight ones picked out.  Sounds like a slight curve is no problem to be straightened with heat?

I have plenty of osage around here, it's a weed tree to most landowners other than it's fence post properties.

I think I will reduce a couple as BM suggests just to maybe get a shooter by late summer..  I assume the problem with working them a little wet is string set?  Are there other issues?

While my staves aren't "perfect" that's actually a good thing, I'd hate to mess up the perfect stave..  

[Eric Krewson]

The pictures are of my "cream of the crop", very little of my osage stash falls into this category. Like I have said before, I have cut most of my osage in front of a bulldozer clearing land, I rescued it all and call it "the good, the bad and the ugly".

[PEARL DRUMS]

Talk about lucky Eric. That must have been pretty nice to peer at each end and decide which to cut up and split. I thought I was lucky taking whichever standing tree I wanted.