Cutting Osage 2

[ranger 3]

Well a friend and  I cut some Osage today. We ended up with 7 staves and two of them are pretty good, the rest is full of knots. There is some trees on this property that are probably 18-24" across but there is limbs every where. What can you do with them? They are fairly straight but they have limbs about every 3-4"

[Roy from Pa]

You could cut 36 inch billets out of them. Saw the logs into 2 inch thick by 4 foot long by 6" wide boards, let them dry for 6 months and saw into billets.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

I usually leave those alone and go find another tree, but I have that luxury here where I'm at.
I pass up some pretty good trees to get to the better ones. Until I had guys start asking for the "snakey" staves so I decided that maybe I need to start taking a closer look at all those crooked trees I've been passing up.

When I have a stave that has big knots or limbs in it, I just try to split in between them and get the clean piece out of it. Then the rest becomes fire wood.