Thin early rings on Osage?

[BarredOwl]

Most of the experienced guys will probably be thinking "so what's the problem" but here I go showing my inexperience. 

So, I had this osage log that I had cut and when I did the first split it had more twist to it than I had expected.  The log has the best early to late growth ratio  by far of anything I have to date. But I decided to let it lay there and worked on more promising looking stuff first.  After a month and a half of walking around it I grabbed the chainsaw and got ready to cut it up for campfire wood.  I looked at the growth rings again and decided I am new to this so I might as well split it out and try to learn for myself if the log really has too much twist.   So I split off what I thought would be the best stave and proceeded to try to remove the sapwood.  Right away I discovered that drier sapwood doesn't come off nearly as easy as week old sapwood.  Maybe someone can confirm this.  I think either completely wet or completely dry would work far better than somewhere in between sapwood.  It was like what I would imagine trying to cut the tread off a tire with a drawknife would be like.  Well anyways I got down to yellow wood on one end and was pretty much worn out so I tried several other techniques that we won't go into here and got the sapwood off.  I viloated several growth rings in doing so and started to try to chase a ring on one end and found out I could hardly tell when I cut into the early growth.  This piece is much different than any other osage I have worked on so far.  It just doesnt have that crunchy feel when I cut into the early wood and is an ultra thin layer compared to any other osage I have worked so far.  I can barley see the transition from early wood to late wood.  I suppose I will just have to go extra slow and am wondering if maybe also I am somewhere between real wet/green wood and seasoned that is making it much more difficult to chase the ring?  Or are thin early growth rings just going to make it more difficult to chase a ring regardless?     

[JW_Halverson]

I think your experience is pretty much the norm.  Sapwood dry as a bone is fine, wet as a sponge is fine...anything in between is a pain between the sitting muscles.

As for chasing the ring, go ahead and seal it up tight on the back and let it sit another 6 months or so.  The blisters will heal, the memory fades, and you might wanna try again.  Have at it when you feel like another run, no sense trying to do fine work when your are frustrated. 

Post pics as you go, some of us (myself included) can't read and like lookin at the pretty pretty pitchers!

[SLIMBOB]

My opinion, not that thin, but a lot of early growth mixed in with the late wood.  Not ideal if I was drawing up what I would like, but workable.  The best stuff appears to be the earlier rings.  I would try and split it in half and try for a belly split I could work along with the outer wood which I think is less desirable.

[BarredOwl]

Maybe that's part of it Slimbob.  I noticed in my photos that there is quite a bit of color variation within what looks like should be late wood.   I do know this wood is working way differently than anything I have touched so far.  I think the time since it was cut is factoring in but I also think the wood has a little different structure that anything I have messed with.  I can barely tell when my draw knife hits the early wood and the part that I can recognize as early wood is very thin.  Color wise it is also very difficult to see compared to other staves I have worked.   This piece also seems to tear out worse which may or may not be the stage of dryness/wetness it is at currently.  the late rings just looked so much better than other wood I have so far.  I am kind of dissapointed by how difficult it seems to be to work so far though.   I did try a quasi belly split on the piece I am working to get rid of the sapwood.  Didn't work so hot right now.   I am thinking that may get a lot better when it dries.   

[JW_Halverson]

I get those grain tear outs when working osage that is not cured out.  Fresh cut stuff doesn't matter because I am just going until I hit yeller wood and will chase rings later.  But otherwise it just ruins a good growthring.  May best serve you to let 'em cure out from here.

[Eric Krewson]

Hmm, no such thing as early wood mixed with late wood, it just doesn't happen.

You have almost perfect rings to chase, get your stave in just the right light and the early wood will stand out like a neon sign.

What you have are the normal striations in your late wood which almost look like mini growth rings when you cut through them. They can fool you sometimes so you have to start in a ring and ignore them lest you think you are cutting through an actual growth ring.

Your first sapwood layer next to the heart wood may be part sapwood part hard wood but that is about the only place you will have any mixing.

[osage outlaw]

Post a picture of the amount of twist if you can.  Twist is pretty easy to get out of osage staves. 

[SLIMBOB]

To say that early wood does not mix with late wood is inaccurate at best. Some late wood rings can have barely discernable lunar rings while others can have lunar rings full of early wood. I find that statement puzzling. TBB I.  Chapter I, Cutting and Seasoning Wood. One of the first pics in the book shows a perfect example.

[Eric Krewson]

Chasing the rings on 300+ osage staves tells me mixing doesn't exist. Early wood/late wood only, although the early wood thickness can be such as to make late wood hard to discern, it is there.

You can believe what you want but experience tells me different. Tons of inaccurate info in the TBB series. Leaving an island of extra growth ring wood around a pin on the bows back is the most glaring that comes to mind.

Slimbob, have you worked with a lot of osage? What did you find out about ring mixing from your actual experience with the stuff. How often did you encounter ring mixing?

[Badger]

  Where exactly was this wood grown, what state? it does have an interesting pattern that would suggest early wood mixing with late. Never have seen it myself but yours does appear this way.

[Eric Krewson]

Having pealed a ton of osage staves, I bet I could put drawknife to that stave and take the early wood off clean as a whistle in short order. If I looked in my stash I bet I could find a similar end grain stave, color variations are normal in osage.

[SLIMBOB]

I use TBB only as a reference, but a pretty good one in this instance. Perhaps on some level early and late wood don't mix, but from a practical standpoint they clearly do. I have not worked 300 staves, but I have worked my share. Early wood exists in greater or lesser degrees within every ring so far as my experience tells me. This stave not withstanding.

[JonW]

I think the color variation of the lunar rings makes this stave confusing for some. I don't see "mixing" of the late and early. I have actually had several staves with rings like that.

Owl if you will let the stave dry some more you will find it will be a little easier work.

I am not of the "scientific" type what so ever. Exactly why does a tree make an early and late ring?

[DarkSoul]

I've never worked with osage (it doesn't grow much in Europe), but I've ring chased several other wood species numerous times. I prefer to ring chase a properly dried stave. Green wood tends to tear out more easily, and my rasp clogs up when I try to use it on fresh wood. Dry wood just ring chases easier for me. However, I do sometimes remove the sapwood of black locust prior to drying. In that case I don't strictly ring chase, but just try to stay within a ring or two. The final ring chasing will be done after the wood has dried.
Remember that good daylight really helps when finding the rings.

To say that early wood does not mix with late wood is inaccurate at best. Some late wood rings can have barely discernable lunar rings while others can have lunar rings full of early wood. I find that statement puzzling. TBB I.  Chapter I, Cutting and Seasoning Wood. One of the first pics in the book shows a perfect example.

I use TBB only as a reference, but a pretty good one in this instance. Perhaps on some level early and late wood don't mix, but from a practical standpoint they clearly do. I have not worked 300 staves, but I have worked my share. Early wood exists in greater or lesser degrees within every ring so far as my experience tells me. This stave not withstanding.

Slimbob, you are mixing up your terminology. Earlywood is not the same as wood vessels. It is biologically accurate in saying that earlywood and latewood don't mix. Think of it this way: a tree lays down wood as it grows. If it grows in spring, it lays down earlywood. If it grows in summer(/autumn), it lays down latewood. How can a tree mix the wood that was grown in spring with that what was grown in summer? It can't.
Instead, what you are pointing out is that you find large wood vessels in the latewood as well, and not only in the earlywood. In the earlywood we do find most big wood vessels for water transport; that is why this earlywood is weaker than the latewood. But the latewood is not void of wood vessels. It just has fewer big vessels.
What you should have said is this:

Some late wood rings can have barely discernable lunar rings while others can have lunar rings full of large wood vessels.

Then you would be correct.

I don't have a scientific explanation for 'lunar rings'. I do see them as well (esp. in elm) and I agree that they are visible because of patterns of the wood vessels. I can imagine they may be in a high concentration of wood vessels, creating a small weakness in the latewood. Just don't call them earlywood.

[SLIMBOB]

I presume that technically you are correct DarkSoul. That sounds like a reasonable explanation so far as my scientific knowledge takes me. I speak about these various things not typically from a scientific perspective, but from a bow making perspective. I contend that, all definitions aside, some Osage has a porouse crumbly "earlywood like" structure within the annual rings at higher levels as a percentage of the whole than others. I believe this to be true based on my experience. It is nothing more than my opinion that this stave may have that particular structure. I have used lots of it and won't turn it down as a result of this. I believe it works differently under a draw knife than rings with clearly defined late wood/earlywood rings and in a perfect world I would custom order staves without the high percentages of this crumbly stuff.
As a side note, it also seems reasonable to me that this crumbly stuff is in fact earlywood as it appears to be layed down monthly, within the annual rings in a manner not unlike the the true annual rings, just in much smaller intervals. Don't know if scientifically this holds water. But practically it does.