Author Topic: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)  (Read 3548 times)

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Offline Nashoba

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70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« on: February 12, 2014, 05:22:56 pm »
Well I gotta preface this whole mess with the story of how I got this.

Last summer I received an internship with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks to work as a "Forest Inventory Technician". The whole jist of the job was to go from park to park and take data on the composition of the forests. I had a great time (despite multiple intimate moments with timber rattlers), l got to work with some great people, I learned a lot, and I saw a lot.

A few weeks into the job my supervisor realized my condition as a toxophilaholic (I think that I am the first to coin this term, so feel free to pick) and it turns out he had some interest in primitive bows. He had tried his hand at making a few different bows with varied success but he had never got REALLY into it. I got to share what little I knew with him and his interest sparked up some more.

The last week of work he came up to me with a request: A few years back he was working at Legion State Park, and he stumbled on a fence post. According to park history, the fence had been put in place in the 1930's, and was in a state of disrepair. He did a quick look over on the post and discovered that it was an Osage Orange post. So with his best estimation the post spent seventy years in/on the ground. He had grown up hearing that the best bow wood came from the "Bodock" tree, so he picked it up and brought it home. The request that he had of me was to split the log and secure as many staves as I could from it. My payment would be a stave of my choice. I was happy to oblige.

Now I am kicking myself for not taking a pre-split picture of the log, but I am sure y'all can guess how ugly the thing looked from the following pictures.













When I first looked over the post I was doubtful that there was a bow stave inside of it. There were cracks on the outside, the outside wood was grey and pithy, I could see grub holes, one side had staples in it, and it looked like it was hollow.
Nevertheless, I took to splitting it. After disturbing the slumber of a dozen wasps that had made their winter home in the center of the log (note the dark areas on the inside of the staves) I found some beautiful yellow wood that appeared, for all intents and purposes, very capable of becoming a bow. The stave that I am looking down in one of the previous pictures is one that I did some very modest drawknife work on to see how bad the worms had burrowed. It appears that they stopped at the yellow wood, and it looks (to my untrained eye) virtuous along the stave.
I might be wrong, but I think that there are at least three good staves out of these.
Here is the one that I am keeping for payment.





It might turn into a disaster, but my instincts are tingling about this one. I am going to take it real slow getting down to a single ring and I am going to try and follow a good design like the one laid out in Vol. 1 of The Bowyers Bible. Any advice, ideas, or observations are welcome and appreciated (I barely have a clue as to what I am doing).

I might take a whack at backing it with this guy and his buddy.






Offline SLIMBOB

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2014, 05:34:48 pm »
Cool find!  Good luck with it.
Liberty, In God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum.  Distinctly American Values.

Offline ohma2

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2014, 05:45:21 pm »
Hope you do well with that. Is that a timber rattler?

Offline Mohawk13

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2014, 05:49:08 pm »
Nice!!! Talk about aged wood....Did You eat the snake after you skinned him???
He That Raises the sword against us, Shall be cleaved upon seven fold-Talmud.

Offline Nashoba

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2014, 05:56:42 pm »
Hope you do well with that. Is that a timber rattler?

Yep. 4'9" worth. I stepped right below his head on my second day of work. It took every bit of my self control to not jump off of him.

Nice!!! Talk about aged wood....Did You eat the snake after you skinned him???

Yep. I had fried snake fritters for lunch the next day.

Offline Josh B

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2014, 06:50:51 pm »
Very nice!  I salvage quite a few old posts.  It is always like Christmas morning when I split one open to see what's inside.  My advice is to get rid of the crap on the outside and get to a fairly intact ring.  Then seal the ends and back really well and put it away somewhere safe for a year or two.  Even though its well seasoned, its a pretty safe bet that its still pretty wet.   If you don't get it down to sound wood and sealed up, the chances of it checking all the way through are pretty high.   Josh

Offline Pat B

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2014, 07:09:31 pm »
I agree with Josh. Get those things sealed.
 Nice acquisition.
Make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes!    Pat Brennan  Brevard, NC

Offline Nashoba

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2014, 07:15:22 pm »
I agree with Josh. Get those things sealed.
 Nice acquisition.

How do you seal the ends? Still something I am not experienced in sadly.

Offline RyanR

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #8 on: February 12, 2014, 07:16:14 pm »
That's a really neat story. I hope the bow turns out nice. Good luck.

Offline Josh B

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2014, 07:38:58 pm »
I use polyurethane most of the time.  I buy it by the gallon and brush it on thick on the back and just dip each end of the stave right in the can 2 or 3 inches deep.  I think Pat uses shellac.  Ive used cheap latex house paint before.  You can buy that pretty cheap at some lumberyards if they messed up the color mix.  I've tried the spray can poly and it didn't seal it very good.  That's just a few things.  I'm sure there's more things that work.  Josh

Offline Pappy

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2014, 08:46:58 am »
Nice find,should make a great bow. I use cheap wood glue to seal the ends,cut with water. :) Some around the club uses melted wax,just dip it in.  :)
 Pappy
Clarksville,Tennessee
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Offline IdahoMatt

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Re: 70 year old Osage fence post (picture heavy)
« Reply #11 on: February 13, 2014, 10:03:02 am »
Looks like a very fun project.  We use juniper for fencing out here.  I've thought about terming the same thing,  not sure if it would work though.  I'll be watching this.