Harvesting my first staves (Osage)

[lenador]

Here is what I ended up with. I've got the ends sealed and all. The shorter on I hope to make either a short bow for practice and or billets. The longer o es I may have been able to split smaller but being such a nice piece of wood and my first time I got nervous. Now on to the walking sticks, sapling bow and then to peel the backs of the staves and seal them.

[osage outlaw]

Nice haul!  How long are the shorter staves?  Hang on to them.  They look like they might be good pieces for short sinew backed bows.

[lenador]

The short ones are between 50-52" long. Not as straight as the long ones.

[TimBo]

Nice work!  Definitely better not to get greedy...you can always split one again later, especially if you find that you like d bows since they can be narrower. 

[lenador]

Yeah that's what I figured too.
There is seven long ones there. I'm hoping to try to trade one for an already seasoned stave.

[Aaron H]

beautiful piece of osage.

[Pappy]

That is some beautiful looking wood,nice haul . 
   Pappy

[lenador]

Thanks guys. Now I just have to put it away somewhere and wait it out to perfection. Will keeping these in the winter ruin them? It gets below zero here and if its like last year it will be way below zero often. And then I'm in the shop about half the week so the temp will be going up when I use my wood burner and down when I'm not.

[Dean Marlow]

Freezing temperatures will not hurt them. Keeping  them out of the weather outside is the main thing.

[Benedikt]

What a nice wood!
I love Osage
What a pitty that i doesn't grow here