Splitting osage, not so straight

[crooketarrow]

    I can see a bow in them all.  I'm like pappy straightness dos'nt bother me if I deside I want to make a bow out of it. As long as the tiller straight the vertical  lines won't matter as long as the tips line up with the handle.

[George Tsoukalas]

Geore, you have some character stave there for sure. Jawge

[gstoneberg]

That's all I get Jawge, character (another name for crooked bow wood ).  Sometime it'd be nice to make a bow from a straight piece.   Here's a batch of seasoned osage splits we did this weekend as well. 



Some are sort-of straight, but there's a bunch of side bend, deflex, reflex and sometimes all of the above.  I would swear on a stack of Bibles that this tree was dead straight when I cut it. There's also some weather splits in this for some reason on the back.  I think this log was laying against the ground when the wood rack sunk with the weight of the wood on the soft Texas clay.  Also borers in this.  Need to select one for the bow trade.

I have 2 or 3 more long quarters from this tree to split.  It was nice to have my 20 year old nephew visiting this past week.  Young men and a splitting maul go together so well.

George

[George Tsoukalas]

George, it is good that dry osage heat straightens well with dry heat and steam works well with wet wood. Jawge

[gstoneberg]

Yes it is Jawge.  Unfortunately, because this wood was near the bottom of the pile and stored outdoors, even though it is 2 years seasoned it still acts a little like wet wood and can split when dry heated.  Other quarters that came off the top of this pile had no problems with dry heat and bent readily.  Makes it hard to know what to do.  I tried to bend a nearly finished bow this past weekend and it split so bad I suspect the bow is ruined.  Weird, in that the bow had taken no set so I thought the wood was fully dry.

George

[DEllis]

To bad about the cracks George. Looks to be a few bows in those staves though. Maybe billets on the right?
Darcy

[gstoneberg]

Hey Darcy, I'm sure that picture looks familiar to you.    Anyway, that's what I thought too.  There's another split out of that log not in the picture that has a huge limb in it.  That one's a billet candidate too.  I'm thinking seriously of taking some of the shorter crooked billets I've got and splicing up a character bow for the exchange.

George

[DEllis]

Hey Darcy, I'm sure that picture looks familiar to you.    Anyway, that's what I thought too.  There's another split out of that log not in the picture that has a huge limb in it.  That one's a billet candidate too.  I'm thinking seriously of taking some of the shorter crooked billets I've got and splicing up a character bow for the exchange.

George

That'd be cool George.......who doesn't like character bows?
Darcy

[Eric Krewson]

In all honesty, when I started cutting osage i would take anything I could find. A year or so into building my stash I wouldn't have wasted my time on the stuff in your first pictures, not worth the headaches.

[gstoneberg]

I've gone through an evolutionary process in my bow making.  At first I wouldn't even try a stave if it wasn't straight.  Then I began to want the difficult ones to see if I could make a bow where it was hard.  Now, I'm playing with heat bending to turn unusable wood into good wood.  And honestly, my success rate has gone down quite a bit as I experiment.  But, it's a hobby and it's just wood, so I don't care.  Now that I need to make a bow turn out for the exchange, I'll probably take better wood, or use splicing to straighten a crooked stave.  Makes the odds go up.  But, I get bored very quickly if there's not a challenge beyond the norm.

Having said all that, this Texas wood has a propensity for going crooked once split that I did not see up north.  I definitely took some wood that was questionable in that batch that started this thread.  That's because somebody else cut it and I just picked it up.  When I do the cutting  I choose only straight trees, but even so, I still get crooked staves.  Murphy loves me.

George

[PeteC]

George,it looks like you cut your wood in the same area I do.I see very little wood any straighter than yours,(in east Texas ,anyway).   God Bless

[gstoneberg]

Pete,

Yea, quite a bit north of you, but about that far east.  They came out of a grove, planted by the road.  Every tree about 10' from its neighbor.  All thick as heck and crooked as all get out.  Most of those crooked ones I planned from the start to be billets, but they were already cut to length.  I didn't spot wood that was twisted as well as I should have.  Live and learn.

Have you been out hog hunting lately?  I took my brother and nephew out to the lease last weekend and they got 3 with the rifles (120#, 220# and 20#) all were boars.  Just had some pulled pork BBQ a few minutes ago, compliments of that big one.  I sure wish the osage went over that far west.  It would make getting bow wood a lot more enjoyable.

George