Cutting osage boards

[Magnum in Ms]

I have my eye on some osage to cut pretty soon and part of the tree is not straight enough to make staves. I was thinking about having it sawned into boards. So what is the best way to do this and get the wood dry with out it splitting too bad.

[Rich Evans]

Get Dean Torges video "Hunting the Bamboo Backed Bow". He goes into detail about sawing crooked osage into lumber.

[Magnum in Ms]

TTT

[Eric Krewson]

Most osage has dark internal splits in it that we call wind shakes that might make cutting boards out a piece iffy. If you drop the tree and there are no star-burst looking brown places in the core of the trunk it should make good lumber.

Cut like you would any other lumber, paint the ends and stack with spacers between the boards.

One thing about osage is it often has a lot of internal stress so you may have some warping of your boards.

[Magnum in Ms]

Thanks Eric
If I can't get boards out of it to make backed bows maybe I can get billets ,handle material and such. I should get some good staves out of the trees also. Just wanted to use all I can.

[Magnum in Ms]

If the boards warp can you usually heat straighten them ?