If I chase a ring on green osage.........

[Balding Kansan]

Do I need to seal the back or will it be OK?

If I do have to seal the back, how do you guys remove it without damaging the back?

I need to rapid dry a piece so I'm looking to get it to rough dimensions without it checking.

-Tyler

[okie64]

Seal the back with shellac and you can sand it off later or leave it on(thats what I do on whitewoods). I split my osage into staves and leave the bark on it to dry for a year or two. I tried to dry osage quickly a few times and it always checked and split even with the back sealed.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Seal for certain! Dont start the project until you can finish it at the same time. When the bow is roughed out you can seal the back up again. Its one of those start and cant stop projects. Like heat tempering bellies!

[scrub-buster]

Seal it, let it dry, and seal it again.  I am putting 2-3 coats polyurethane on my osage staves after I remove the bark and sapwood.  I would prefer shellac, but poly is cheaper.

[Balding Kansan]

Thanks fellas.

[Eric Krewson]

Shellac is real brittle and scrapes off easily with out damaging the staves back.
I put 3 or 4 thick coats of shellac on a green usage stave's back to be on the safe side.

If you try to dry a green stave to quickly it will crack no matter how well you have it sealed.

[DVSHUNTER]

Originally posted by Eric Krewson:
Shellac is real brittle and scrapes off easily with out damaging the staves back.
I put 3 or 4 thick coats of shellac on a green usage stave's back to be on the safe side.

If you try to dry a green stave to quickly it will crack no matter how well you have it sealed.

Very solid advice. I use shellac too, applied in two thick coats, sometimes more.  When ots all drt i steam it for an hour and a half to speed up the drying. Then a week in the garage before going in the hotbox at eighty-five and slowly, week by week raising the temp till i reach 95 it all takes about a month maybe more.

[scrub-buster]

Another thing to think about is the stave warping.  You might have to strap it to a board or something.  I have roughed out green osage staves before and then they warped into a banana shape.

[Bowjunkie]

Don't take it all the way down to the summer ring. If you only go to the porous spring ring, and then seal it(I use shellac) you can still reduce it to rough bow dimensions, dry it, then scrape the shellac and spring ring off, revealing the summer ring for the back of the bow without damaging it/cutting into it/reducing its thickness.

[Stiks-n-Strings]

I chased a ring on one this summer that was cut 2 years a go and three days later it had hairline checks in running with the grain. I always seal a stave after chasing a ring now unless it has been roughed out and sat for a long time or put in the hot box.

 Like Eric I only use shellac. It can be scraped right off pretty easy even on the ring you want for a back unless your rings are very thin. I'm pretty sure you can remove dry shellac with denatured alcohol as well.

[ozarkcherrybow1]

Hunting the osage bow" is a must read! It's my go to book on osage..

[Adam Keiper]

If the stave is green, I drawknife my way down to 1 ring above the one I want for the final back, then shellac it well.  Unless the stave is super snakey, has alot of twist, or has growth rings that go thick-thin from side-side, I'll even layout the bow based on the grain in that ring.

On that ring, I'll pencil everything in, narrow to final width, thin the belly, and dry it.  When I feel comfortable that it's dry, I'll chase the last ring with a drawknife, scraper, and sandpaper, then proceed right into tillering.

[George Tsoukalas]

I go right to the ring I want and get all sanded nice and pretty. Read to be the back. Then I go ahead and give it a coat of spar urethane. I really only do this i the wood is green. Jawge