Introduction and question.

[Rob W.]

Hello everyone. I can't remember if I have ever posted but I check in here regularly and have always enjoyed the wealth of info. Over the years I have had my ups and downs building selfbows. I have hunted glass bows for the last 8 or so years and I think it's time to get serious about building some selfbows.

Recently I have built my wife a nice little osage and myself a hickory bow. A buddy and I have also gained access to cut some nice osage and we worked most of the day cutting and splitting.



My question is how long will this stuff take to dry? I can put it in the house if that will help. We sealed the ends and split into staves. Some staves are pretty big. Also there were some nice straight saplings. Any special treatment for those? I appreciate the help.

Rob W.

[osage outlaw]

Welcome!  That is a fine looking piece of osage you have there.  It wouldn't hurt to seal the ends another time or two on your staves.  If you remove the bark and sapwood make sure to seal the back of the staves like you did the ends.  You could take a stave down to rough bow dimensions and bring it in the house.  Be careful.  Trying to quick dry osage can lead to checking and warping. 

[Rob W.]

Thanks Osage Outlaw.

It should make some good bows. How long would you think it would take for it to dry in my garage? I'm in Indiana.

[Badger]

      I rough mine out green any time I don't have something dry to work on. Osage should be good to finish about 1 month later if you bring the roughed out bow in the house. I usually get mine to floor tiller about two weeks after roughing out. Osage seems to improve with age but is still a great wood when not really seasoned as well as you might want to season it.

[osage outlaw]

A fellow Hoosier.  What part of the state are you in?  I'm in the S.E. corner.  There are a few guys from Indiana on here.

[Rob W.]

I'm in dubois county but I'm from and hunt in Crawford co.

[osage outlaw]

Well it looks like you found some good osage over there.  That one is still holding a lot of sap for this late in the year. 

[blackhawk]

Welcome to pa!!! Looks like your starting out the right way...OSAGE!!!

Id rough a few down to bow blanks n carefully dry em out so they can be ready to work in a couple months...it might not be as good as seasoned wood imho but itll still make a decent bow,and will be good to learn on. Have fun!!!

[Springbuck]

Badger gave you the key.  Small staves dry fast, big staves dry slow.  The smaller the stave the more likely it is to warp or twist, so I restrain all small wood while drying.

[sieddy]

Thats one hell of a log and one great pile of Staves! I look forward to seeing what you make of em! 

[bradsmith2010]

thats a gold mine, nice,, well guess what I know how hard you worked to get that,, probably ruined some saw blades for sure,, I like Badgers advice,, congrats on some nice wood, I see some bows in there,, 

[steve b.]

Lucky.

[Rob W.]

Thanks guys! We didn't attempt to tackle this one. Waiting until the ground freezes to get truck closer. We took those first logs out by hand across a sloppy cow pasture. 

[osage outlaw]

Now is the time to cut osage.  No bugs, no heat, less sap flowing, and they won't check as quickly.

[Rob W.]

Here is a straight one.