Stone age methods for Osage?

[Jim Davis]

I'm having a very hard time believing that stone age peoples worked Osage down to heartwood using stone tools. I see how green wood could be worked down, but the serrated edges of stone tools would make it hard to work down to one ring and leave a smooth, unscarred surface.

Be that as it may, it occurred to me that a person could bury a stave with the bark on, or even just put it back downward on the ground in the shade, and let the bark and sap wood rot away over a few years.I'd think there would be no cracking of the back if placed that way.  If a supply was always being added to as it was taken away, it could save a whole lot of labor and get a perfect surface on the first heart wood ring--maybe. Putting it bark-side down might also keep out the boring insects--maybe.

I'm going to try it with a low-value billet and see what happens. Check back in five years or so. 

[mullet]

It can be done and it's not that hard to do. I've done it using a stone ax and large and small flakes of stone.

[bradsmith2010]

if thats all you had, and you were used to using it,, I don't think it was that hard,, and I don't think the sapwood on osage is gonna rot off,, just start now with the stone tool and you will be done before 5 years,,

[sleek]

I make all my bows using ALMOST exclusively my KaBar knife. I fire up the elt sander only to true up edges, shape handles and remove tool marks. 

I have cut osage with just my knife and start to finish made many just the one tool. Yes it is metal but with osage stone would work just as well. See, except for felling the tree, there is very little actual chopping chips out the wood. You are working up large sections to split off the stave for stock removal. Osage splits so well it takes less effort to male a stone age osage bow than it takes to make any white wood bow. This I know for a fact. I have used a small baseball bat to split stave once i got the split started. No edge needed.

. Also, who says tje edges of stone tools were serrated? They would not have done that to those tools. Rather, they would have just spalled off a good flake and used its sharp broken glass like edge to scrape away the wood.

Eddie, I would love to see your stone ax.

[Jim Davis]

.... Also, who says tje edges of stone tools were serrated? They would not have done that to those tools. Rather, they would have just spalled off a good flake and used its sharp broken glass like edge to scrape away the wood.

Eddie, I would love to see your stone ax.

Yes, I hadn't thought of that--read it a long time ago, but forgot..

Still going to inter a billet.

[Steve Milbocker]

If I went to all the work to fell an osage with stone tools...ain't no way i'm leaving it lay and seeing how it comes out!!:)

[Eric Krewson]

Two things; First they didn't have time clocks like we do, and second, they probably split the bark and sapwood off.

[riverrat]

in a few books i have that show pics of osage bows most have some sapwood on them. most.or sinew on the back. very few in them books are worked down to one ring. but there are a few.Tony

[George Tsoukalas]

The ancients that used stone tools would have worked green staves as much as possible. Jawge

[JonW]

I would venture to say that most bows in a museum or drawings of bows were not made in the stone age. The osage examples I have seen and looked at were made in the 1800s. But Im sure stone age people could do it.

[sleek]

Are bows that old? Did the make them in the stone age?

[Jim Davis]

Are bows that old? Did the make them in the stone age?

I've got to be sarcastic, can't help it.

NO. Stone age people just made those arrow heads we find for later on when Europeans would arrive and they could trade them for steel. 

[paulsemp]

If you had never seen a piece of steel and all you did was work with rock and antler and wood you wouldn't be sitting there thinking how much easier it would this be with a vice and  a steel drawknife. Ignorance is bliss and you would just work with what you have

[nclonghunter]

Well there was spears and atlatls before the bow. A large spall can have a sharp squared cutting edge to scrape with. To finish down to a single thick ring a sandstone rock could be used.

How many Osage bows are known of or found in early times? I would think white woods such as hickory that allows the bark to be stripped off would be a good choice if skill or abilities are limited.

[sleek]

Are bows that old? Did the make them in the stone age?

I've got to be sarcastic, can't help it.

NO. Stone age people just made those arrow heads we find for later on when Europeans would arrive and they could trade them for steel. 

Naw its fine.  Perhaps and probably my time periods are all mixed up.  But i was under the impression that even in the age of riffles they still made stone heads.  And i dont know what points were made in the stone age but i know they had atlatl and knife points. So if you define stane age as the era where stone points were used, just browse these pages and you will see we are still in it.  I guess i will do some googling.