what kind of osage is best?

[yewsage]

I've ordered osage twice through ****.  The first time was a block of this dark orange wood, almost reddish brown in places.  This second time the wood is really yellow.  Has anybody noticed differences in the types of wood, or is the colour no consequence at all?

thanks

[bjansen]

In general the color of Osage changes as it is exposed to light and over time an osage stave or a finished bow will turn from yellow to orange to near brown, this will happen with all osage.  

The rings on the other hand also have a different color when lookign at them on edge.  (latewood being darker and of course the more latewood the more desirable).  I think the difference in your staves was likely just due to different ages/exposures to light.

[Pat B]

Some of the osage with red streaks is very good bow wood but some is not. I guess the same applies to the yellow stuff. I have very little access to osage so I use whatever I can get my hands on. I have never had a bad piece of osage!!!

[Shaun]

Ring size and ratio of light and dark (spring and summer) wood is key. Color does not matter. Clear and straight is nice too.

[Eric Krewson]

From my experience the dark, oily osage doesn't have as much snap as the butter yellow stuff.

I have run through a bunch of osage over the years, great osage, good osage, average osage and some great looking stuff that was brittle, very light colored and physically as light as a piece of pine. The latter was not bow wood.

I also consign any osage with side checks to the scrap pile, had 100% failures from this type of wood.

[tah-gah-jute]

i had a well known bowyer tell me he felt the osage with the purple-ish streaks in them was more dense or stronger wood.i have split a good amount of osage logs right after cutting trees down some were real yellow,some dark orange with dark reddish-purple-ish streaks.that's the way they already were,had nothing to do with amount of light or seasoning.

[yewsage]

man, i want some quality time with my chainsaw in a hedge of straight osage...

so the answers sound like a mixed bag:  but the most surprising is to hear that some osage is not bow wood at all, considering what strange lumps people turn into bows around here!  

I got lucky:  won a stave for $20 US, and it was so big i split it into 3 good blanks.  they are bright yellow and all have natural reflex.  Some of the knots are pretty big, but i'm used to knots from working with yew.  

With yew i find you can just scrape the knots right down flush, but i hear with osage you must make special allowances...then again, sometimes people just drill the knots right out, don't they, and let the surrounding wood do the work?

[pappy]

I always chase the ring right over the knot,don't cut through them,if the knot goes deep or all the way through I will scrape out the punky part but never drill.They will for sure spinter up if you cut them off flush.
   Pappy

[John Scifres]

As your answers show, it really depends.  I have had a hard time characterizing osage based on color alone.  Clean and a high latewood:earlywood ratio are the better indicators for me.

I have drilled out a couple knots but pappy's advice is better.  I never flatten them.

[yewsage]

never as in:  you never have, or never like:  you did before and the limb broke at the knot?

i like the look of humpy bumpy staves, though, and they're fun to make.  

the growth ring ratio is favourable with these staves, with several latewood rings 1/8" thick.  I have never chased the ring on osage before, and with all the yew i've worked, i've found you can hack and slash the back however you want and still get a safe 50# bow out of it no problem.  

I wonder:  do you still have to be this careful with the knots if you back the bow in sinew?

[yewsage]

also...

what if i want to back it with bamboo?  i've done this before, but not with a stave, just milled strips of osage.  Do i file through the knot so it's flush with the back of the bow?  I guess i would have to.  Or, do you steam the bamboo and clamp it over the knots such that the bamboo conforms to the shape of the knot?  Then after letting it readjust to the humidity and equalize its moisture content, laminate the bamboo to the back with the raised knots?

[DCM]

With a stiff laminate backing like hickory or boo you require flat mating surfaces.  If you have knot, use the stave in the plain saw orientation, as if the backing were a back ring.

With any other backing or selfbow, never violate the back ring, rather follow it over the knot, which are generally raised.  For rotten knots follow the ring into the hole as best you can.  I've not had trouble with knots or thru holes in osage.  Usually it's that they hinge, or are too stiff, rather than popping a back ring.

[yewsage]

ok thanks, dcm

[John Scifres]

Oh yes, I have broken bows by being too aggressive in knocking down a knot  

Chasing osage rings isn't hard.  I find it very therapeutic.  I've done 22 staves in the past 3 weeks.  I am SOOOOO calm.

I agree with DCM on the backing questions.  I once spent a lot of time on backing a bow with rawhide and then tillering it only to have it break at full draw where I had nicked a ring.  I knew that I had done t but thought the backing would hold it.

[yewsage]

why so many at once?  are you planning to hold a workshop or something?

[John Scifres]

Just trying to get it done.  A bunch of hoosiers cut some wood a couple weeks ago and that was my share.  No sense holding a bunch of bark and sapwood in my shop  

[yewsage]

interested in trading any osage for vine maple?

[yewsage]

oh, and please tell me what a hoosier is, thanks

[shamus]

Evaluating Osage  

Hope that helps.

[George Tsoukalas]

What kind of osage is best? The kind that's locked firmly in the vice of my bow bench.    Jawge