Any advice on Orange Osage

[Silent Bear]

Just purchased some Orange Osage staves online, I am new too this species of wood and thought I would give it a try since I noramally work only with whitewoods, any advice on working with this wood is certainly appreciated, thanks

[Ross]

Get "Hunting the Osage Bow"by Dean Torges
available at Kustom King.He is a master
at coaxing bows out of that yaller wood.
Ross

[sulphur]

ditto

[Shaun]

You are going to be pleasantly surprised. Osage is much harder to work with tools, but much easier to get a bow from.

Use bright light - like sunshine - to help chase a ring.

[Pete W]

Don't let it scare you like it did me.
I am a novice,and love to work with Osage now that I did a couple flat bows that turned out to be good shooters.
 It is quite easy to work with, and straightens / bends well with heat. Being a very dense and hard wood, when you slip with a tool it creates a small mistake, softer woods create big mistakes from small slips.
 I had trouble chasing a ring untill I got under good light.Then it was easy.

 I just wish we had some up here.

 Pete

[Osagetree]

Do you know when they were cut? You might see if you could find out. Drying is a factor with any wood!

[Silent Bear]

They were cut 8 months ago

[John Scifres]

Follow Deans book.  They probably will not be dry unless they were reduced down to near bow size.  I assume all staves with bark on are still green.

[Silent Bear]

Im not looking to buy a book, im just wanting to find some advice from you guys that have worked with this wood, I should be fine I will show you guys how it turns out, thanks for the help

[George Tsoukalas]

You can make them narrower and shorter than whitewood bows. Jawge

[Roy from Pa]

Osage is ok, I guess:)

[Silent Bear]

I bought a couple of 46 inch staves, I plan on making a couple of highly reflex sinew backed bows, I have a couple of sinew back bows that I made from fruitless mulberry that are 37 and 38 inches, I have heard you can make osage bows about an inch narrower than most bows is this true ?

[va]

Silent Bear -

take a look in the Build-along section.  There are enough words and pictures there that even I made a shooter.

My advice (which I rarely follow myself) is to reduce one (10 of the staves to near floor tiller stage and then coat it with a sealant like watery wood glue or even light floor wax and then forget about it until August.  Also - I used sinew on a few osage bows and found it did little to improve the end result.  I realize you are pushing the bow-length to draw limits so I will shut up now other than to point you at the aforementioned Build-Along section of this website.

va

[Silent Bear]

thanks va I will go check it out, anything over 50 inches is not worth the extra effort of sinewing in my opinion, how long was your bow ?