What to do with curly osage

[scrub-buster]

I have some curly osage that I recently started making a bow from.  The wood seems heavy and almost waxy feeling.  I have the bow tillered out and if you looked at how much wood is left you would think its a 70 lb bow but its only 40-45 lbs.  Its beautiful, but its a dog to shoot.  I'm wondering if it would be better used in laminated bows.  I have absolutely zero knowledge about lam bows.  There is a saw mill a short distance away.  Would they be able to cut it into something that would work?  If I can't figure out a way for it to become bow wood I guess I'm going to use it for knife handles.  I'll try to get some better pictures tomorrow.

   

[talkingcabbage]

I bet you could send it to me and I'll let you know if its good enough for a glass bow.  

[D]

Dang Cabbage ya beat me to it I was gonna say the sending it to me thing..lol.  I don't if I've ever seen any like that.  Unfortunately I have no idea about your question.  Sure would make some pretty knife handles though

[Pat B]

I got to see this stave at the Tenn Classic and Clint gave me a piece of the scrap for overlays. The curly osage is very cool looking stuff.

[talkingcabbage]

Seriously though, if you have a 3 foot piece you could part with I'd like to give it a try.

[scrub-buster]

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I don't want to use it all up on poor performing selfbows.  The wood feels different than normal osage.

[LittleBen]

curly wood will be weaker than straight grained wood.

Make riser blocks or something. Anywhere you's use curly maple ...... use curly osage!

[Trux Turning]

That would work well as veneers in a glass bow or as lams- and it would look good too.

[scrub-buster]

I'm strictly a selfbow builder.  I don't do riser blocks.  

Trux, using it as veneers under glass is what I was wondering about.

[Crooked Stic]

I might give up a body part to get enough of that for a TD riser--  :D

[scrub-buster]

Its not sanded yet, just cleaned up with a scraper.  

The back
   


The belly

   

[Roy from Pa]

Clint that is awesome.

[LittleBen]

That is just beggin to be sawn into dimensional lumber for lam bows or something.

[KenH]

drooool.....

[Trux Turning]

Wow looks even nicer cleaned up a bit

[John Scifres]

I made a bow from some curly osage many years ago and named it "MOJam Memories" as it had a bunch of stuff gifted to me at MOJam including grass carp skins.  I have posted pics of it before.  It was a beautiful bow, maybe the prettiest I have made.  But my experience with its shooting characteristics matches yours.  Slow, tons of handshock and lighter in draw than it should have been for the dimensions.  It looks pretty in the rack though.

[scrub-buster]

I'm thinking curly wood just doesn't make good shooting bows.  I've had this one in the hot box off and on for the last two days trying to get any excess moisture out and it didn't seem to help.  I reflexed it on the caul today.  It heat bent very easily.  I won't use any more of the curly stuff for selfbows.

[Bivyhunter]

I hope I don't sound like a vulture, but if you're interested in selling the board, I'd be happy to buy it off of you and pay shipping to get it out to CA to turn into laminations.