Stockpilling Osage

[bdsmith1]

Buddy found us some Osage rotting away in someone's brush pile. He's gotta saw Mill, so we brought it up here to get what we could out of it. Nothing great for self bows, but wonderful for billets.  Gotta let this stuff dry out, but I think we'll get a fair number of bows.  Can't wait to strap some boo to the back and get to work.


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[bdsmith1]

For scale

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[Pat B]

Looks like some nice, dense osage. The color of the first one is incredible. Gonna make some pretty bows with a lot of zip. 

[bdsmith1]

Yeah the smaller stuff tended to have more color.  The bigger stuff had checks and cracks with a limited color/density, but I'm hoping it will still make fine bow wood. Either way, it beats letting it rot away on the ground haha. There was plenty of clear grained to work with.

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[Bowjunkie]

Yeah, there's a lot of waste in those, but should be some useful stuff here and there.

[Forwardhandle]

It never hurts to hoard osage before you know it you will have more wood then time to make bows !

[bdsmith1]

That's the dream!

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[leftyfred]

Put some tin on top with sticks in between, and spray some diesel fuel on the sapwood, and on the heartwood won't hurt.  Powerpost beetles are active year round.  A gallon of diesel is $3.50 and a pile of holes is firewood.  If I keep it outside, I like my sticks pointing toward the prevailing wind, better air flow.  LF

[bdsmith1]

Thanks Fred. We got em on racks drying in the shop with stickers in between. They're out of the weather and well off the ground. We're trying to saw em up so we can speed up the dry time in the dry box.  1 bulb on. Checking with the moisture meter daily

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[Pat B]

Be sure the ends are sealed.

[Eric Krewson]

With staves I found I needed to let the wood air dry to 16% before I put it in the drying box or it would check. Dimensional lumber might not need to air dry like staves. Even at 16% I only heated the box to 90 degrees.

[bdsmith1]

Thanks Eric,

I've tried some mulberry so far. It checked, but didn't hurt anything.  It was in the Heartwood, outside of the useable part of the wood.  I'll keep that in mind though. I think the key is to saw it up first. A 3/4 inch piece dry much more evenly than 2-3 inch staves.  I plan on trying some staves soon, but right now I just wanna build 40-50 good bows too get the skill and experience behind me. I've made several hickory self bows, but I've yet to come across a piece of Osage that's straight-ish for more than 40 inches.

Thanks,

Brian

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