Osage lovers, check this out!

[Steve Kendrot]

How many bows do you think are hiding in this tree? I'm 6'4". This is one of dozens of trees like this in a half mile or so hedgerow. Lots of other "lesser" trees as well.

 

[BamBooBender]

Wow!    :eek:   Is that osage crossed with redwood?    

[catfishon]

thats a big one for sure. make alot of bows!
 
 
 
 
but it's no fun !!!!

[ber643]

Ow - that hurts! Did it once on a machine. Those rings can be mean sometimes.

Man That's a big "hedgerow" tree. You know, I never heard about Osage untill I got to reading all the selfbow threads a few years back (hailing from New Hampshire originally, and not getting into bows much until late in life). Now I love it and have a slug of Osage bows, and am working on another. Was Osage originally an imported tree here in the US, and if so, was it one of those trees they advertised in all the magaziness (when I was a "younger"), as a fast growing hedgerow,border/windbreak type planting? Just a thought I've often had and been curious about.

[swp]

Osage is a native tree to the US. Everything you want to know about osage  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage-orange

[John Scifres]

I have cut a lot of osage.  And looked at thousands of trees.  That is about tied for the best I've seen, at least from this side.  I would never cut it bit it sure would make bows, and lots of them.  It's too big for my way of cutting but if you had some bigs saws and something to move and split it with, you should go for it.  I'll pray for you.

I can't generally handle anything more than 14" dia. trees.  Bigger than that and I regret it.

[Steve Kendrot]

Public land in PA... No cutting for that magnificent tree.

[ChristopherO]

I did some osage harvesting last Friday and I am still feeling it in my hip joints.  The bane of osage is that the limbs always seem to intertwine (TANGLE) into the trees next to it.  They are a lot of work but I look forward to hopefully creating some yeller bows from the effort.

[Eric Krewson]

A friend gave me a bunch of seasoned osage, all with the bark and sapwood still on. I bandsawed off as much as I could but still can only remove the remainder down to the first ring a foot at a time before I have to put it up for a while and rest my poor wrists(carpel tunnel), like trying to peal off layers of steel.

For those of you cutting your first osage, remove the bark and sapwood from your staves while green. Very easy to do green. When you get around to making bows from your wood you will have saved yourself a bunch of difficult work.

[Mudd]

That's an awesome tree if I can still read bark. I'd have to wait until it was cut-n-split out before I would want to think about tackling it. If you used that dog to hunt it down it might not have been fair chase tho.. have to check the rules...lol on the other hand if you have a dog that can take you to hedge that big and straight you might make money on him just by leasing him out. Especially to the northern guys who don't get a lot of hedge rows to look through.

[ber643]

Thank you, swp. It's a very intertesting tree/wood.

[Sidewinder]

I'll bet that one has some fat rings. There are many bows in that one. The big problem will be clearing a drop zone for that big ole beast. You don't want it to get hung up in the branches of the other trees cuz you'll play heck getting it off the stump, believe me I know. I recently harvested one that was 18" diameter and straight barked up to about 17ft. I thought I had cleared a good drop zone and it got hung up on the stump for a while. If it were not for divine intervention it would still be there. Thats a lot of tree and if gravity doen't help it'll be a bugger. Just remember too, those trees don't come around every day, I would try and take it if I were you. I don't know how close to the road it is but we had to quarter ours and hand carry them about 200yds to the road, but we got it done and it's produced some beautiful bow wood that is currently resting in the stave stash awaiting its next assignment. Oh I almost forgot...if you do it make sure you seal the ends immediatly or it will start checking in 5 minutes. Of course I'm sure you already have heard that.  Danny

[Jason Lester]

This is the biggest I've seen. I left another length as long as those two because I was afraid I'd hurt my truck.

[bluegill]

This was my Osage first harvest, 13 years ago. The chainsaw I had crapped out before I could finish my second cut. I ended up using a bow saw for an hour here and there for the next 3 days.

 

The old girl yielded enough for 26 bows and countless turkey call and duck calls. I still have 2 sets of billets from this tree.

 

[GingivitisKahn]

catfishon - dude, that's marriage for ya.  :-D

[Brainbruise]

You lucky dog!

[Eric Krewson]

Finally help with splitting huge osage logs, never thought of doing it this way.