osage

[yazoo]

what is the best kind of osage thick ringed or this?

[yazoo]

should say thick ringed or thin? does it matter?

[sailordad]

me personaly i think the best kind of osage is "any i can get my hads on"

[1/2primitive]

me personaly i think the best kind of osage is "any i can get my hads on"

That's about right.

Thick ringed is generally considered the better stuff. Though I had a piece of Hedge that was thin ringed but very dense, and it made two good bows (yes, I will squeeze two out of a 'normal' stave ).
     Sean

[Pat B]

The bow I posted recently, Shere Kahn, has very thin rings; about 30 to the inch. I am working on 2 other bows now that have quite thick rings; about 4 or 5 to the inch. Both thin ringed and thick ringed osage will make very good bows. Any you can get your hands on is the best!       Pat

[FlintWalker]

  Of all the osage bows I've made, it was the thinner ringed wood that made the best bows.  It seems that I get more set and a slower bow with the thick ringed stuff. But...That's just my opinion   Saw Filer

[Pappy]

What Shanon said.I like thin.
   Pappy

[shamus]

The more important thing is the latewood-heartwood ratio, not necessarily thickness or thinness of the rings.

There has to be a clear demarcation between the latewood and earlywood. If you have that, then you have good osage. If a thick-ringed piece and a thin-ringed piece BOTH have good latewood/earlywood ratios, then I'd go with the thicker-ringed piece only because it would be easier to chase a ring on it.  I've chased thin rings but it's not very enjoyable. 


more thoughts of mine on chasingfrings: http://analogperiphery.blogspot.com/2008/05/chasing-growth-rings.html

[Ryano]

There's no such thing as a bad piece of Osage......

[yazoo]

I must admit I like them thick about one to the inch

[Eric Krewson]

I have used about every type of osage and find it falls in a bunch of different categories, dark, standard bright yellow color, very light with little difference between sapwood and heart wood color, extra wide ring, wide ring, 1/4-1/8th" rings, tight ring and rings so tight you can't separate different rings with the naked eye.

You have the rock hard osage also hard buttery stuff that is like slicing a green potato, no splintering. Next would be the hard osage that splinters and tears followed by grainy soft osage that has a very light physical weight when compared to the hard, dense osage.

Early wood, late wood ratios vary considerably with sharp thin late wood rings and late wood rings in other staves blurred, wide and seemingly bleeding into the early wood rings.

My favorite is the hard osage with paper thin late wood lines, 1/8th to 1/4" wood rings, buttery, bright yellow wood that doesn't splinter, that takes heat well  and doesn't return to it's former configuration after being corrected.

[TRACY]

Made bows from thick and thin and have had both fail and succeed as bows. I don't really care either way, I just get busy and find the bow in the stave no matter the # of rings.


Tracy

[mobow]

Would agree with everyone.  My favorite is anyone that I can chase the ring on.  keith

[DCM]

I would only add that each stave is different, so you have to listen to the stave as you work it to optimize the design, generally in terms of limb width.

Pat B,

If by chance you have started to work on those crooked billets from year before last Tn Classic, use 10% more wood than you'd expect for good osage.  It was light density, but had the buttery quality Eric speaks of so makes pretty game bow wood.  Only reason I mention it is 4, 5 ring osage is fairly rare and I've only run across two such specimens including those.

[Justin Snyder]

There's no such thing as a bad piece of Osage......

I'm afraid I have to disagree with that.  I haven't seen as much as most guys have but I have seen some pretty bad Osage. In fact, down right useless unless you are building knotty boat propellers.

If they are too thick you only get 2 growth rings in a bow and that is not good. IMHO I like to see at least 4 rings in a limb. I would rather have more rings than less.