Free bow staves!

[talkingcabbage]

Now that I've got your attention...

A guy I work with is practically begging me to come to his place this weekend to look at his osage trees.  He says he's got a few draws and fence-lines with a ton of them that he wants to get rid of.  He says he's also got a bunch of ash and one "thorny locust" tree that's in the middle of a field that he really wants cut down.  I'm guessing it's honey locust, but he says it's like, 40 feet straight up to the first branch.  I haven't actually seen it yet, so we'll see.

Anyway, I'm gonna go check it out this weekend and see if any of the osage is worth cutting down for bow staves.  If anyone lives in the southern Iowa or northern Missouri area and wants one (or wants to help) pm me.  I'm not sure what I'll get out of this (if anything) but if someone wants to share the wealth, I'd be happy to bless you with it!  

Okay, that's all.  You can go back to dreaming about your next bow

Joe

[ChristopherO]

I would suspect you will find at least one stave tree but don't by pass the "Billet" cuts, either.
I know what you are talking about, I am using osage that I harvested the Saturday after Thanksgiving 2007 from a man who really wanted me to cut into his fence line.  Good stuff!
PS, I have found out that good soil produces better osage.  Clay, rocky soil can keep the growth rings pretty thin while the bottom land ground that has plenty of moisture has very nice to follow growth rings.