My first piece of OSAGE!

[doggonemess]

My hardwood supplier (or as my wife refers to him, my crack dealer) finally managed to get his hands on a really nice piece of osage orange. I don't know if it could be made into a bow, maybe if it was cut in two and then spliced, but I don't really care. It's a beautiful piece of wood. Rich color, REALLY heavy, and clearly cut from the vertical (you can see bits of bark on the corners, with nice grain.

I just like to look at it right now. I'm seriously thinking of just putting it in a glass box and rubbing it with a diaper once in a while.

See here:







I put the Lego bag in the shot because I wanted to make sure I had something to use as a color-key. The camera is junk, so I had to 'touch up' the images afterwards.

I noticed that there are other spiffy remnants in the shot as well (I've got so much junk laying around when I work that I don't even see it until I look at pictures). On the left, the large board with everything on top of it is hickory, with a plank of Douglas fir, a scrap of black walnut, and a pen blank of purple heart. Between them and the osage is a section of jatoba. That stuff is dense like you wouldn't believe.

On the right, there is a pile of half-worked bows. One is a hickory longbow, shaping up nicely. Another is my daughter's new future bow (as long as I don't mess it up, it's becoming a trend) which is butternut backed with a thin strip of hickory (which doubled or tripled the draw weight of the butternut). There is a really long piece of jatoba which I hope to back with hickory and make into a D-bow.

Laying on top of all that is my father's boyhood recurve bow, for which I'm making a new string. It's a laminate wood recurve, with a fiberglass backing (so not primitive), but it's very nice. Very old, too, you can tell from the handle wrap. The markings on the bow indicate that it's 47 pounds at 28 inches, and the bowyer named it "The Wolverine". I plan to restore the backing just to be safe and shoot it a bit more.

Sorry for the rambling, just excited about my new finds. Hope someone else enjoys this, too.

[DarkSoul]

I like those "junk laying around in my shop"-pictures We don't see them too often, but it's always nice to see what others are working on, or how they arrange stuff in their shop.

Looks like a nice piece of osage! What size is it? It looks to be fairly thick. Be careful it doesn't dry out from the ends, causing drying checks. You might want to seal those ends.
Cut it to nice slats and glue on a backing. Some hickory or bamboo will do great on that piece of wood.

[doggonemess]

I'd say it's almost 2 inches tall, 4 inches wide and not quite 4 feet long. I'm not totally sure about how to work it - the grain goes here and there sometimes and the back has a few marks. I'll take a few more pictures with a better camera and get some detail up here.

By the way, the shots were actually taken in my dining room as I was moving a whole bunch of stuff around and got really cluttered all over. My wife was definitely not amused, I assure you.

[Slackbunny]

Maybe do a splice and back it with hickory? That might help with the wonky grain.

Maybe you could chase a ring on two billets down to their bases, then glue a reinforcement riser piece on in the middle where they meet. Need to keep it a stiff handle that way though.

Or even better, you could make a two piece takedown bow. That would be pretty cool.

[doggonemess]

I kind of like the takedown bow idea. I've never made one before, though. I think I'll do some experiments with a crummier piece of wood first, just to get it right. A takedown osage flatbow, perfect for stashing in my backpack for my 'nature' hikes.

[Pappy]

Beautiful color,got to love that. Rings don't look that good to me,I would for sure back it with something,the rings are wide enough to chase [with some care] but the ratio between summer and winter is almost even. That looks like my work area,lots of things started,  I just need to get some of them finished. Keep us updated on how you proceed. 
   Pappy

[Eric Krewson]

Quarter it into 1" thick 2" wide pieces, splice into two cores, back with bamboo using the extra pieces on the ends for glued on handles and you will have two fine bows out of that one piece of so-so osage.