Ok fella's, here is my dilema: I have no seasoned osage. I do have plenty of osage that I cut in December and January, and so I have been trying to speed dry a few staves and would like some opinions on how to safely get this done. I will explain what I have done so far and then I kindly ask for you advise. When I cut the wood, I split it into staves and then worked the bark and sapwood off enough to get a look at the linear grain. I then layed out a three inch wide section down the length and cut that out. Then I reduced the depth of the stave to about 1 3/4 inches. I then shellaced the back and ends and let the wood sit for about a week in my basement, which is warm and dry. After a week, I re-cut the stave into a two inch stave and then worked the back down to one ring above the ring I want to use. I then marked out the handle and fadeout section and reduced the depth of the limbs down to 7/8 of an inch. I left the handle area at one and a half inches deep and worked the fadeouts. Then I re-shallacked. I let the staves sit a few days and then put them in a steam tube for two hours and then on a reflexed form. After coming off the form, I let them sit a few more days and then layed out the bows and cut them out. I now have two staves. One stave, I heat treated with a heat gun a few times and the other didn't need to be heat straightened. I now have both staves to the floor tillering stage, but do not want to go any further for fear that the wood is still too moist. I have been keeping the staves in my heat box for a few days and the temp is right at 100 degrees. No signs of propellor or drying checks, etc. My question is this, can anybody give me advise on how to get the wood to proper moisture content from here so that I can work on tillering, etc? Have I done anything wrong to this point? How much time would the staves require in my heat box before moisture is down to around 8%? Thanks in advance for any and all advise. Mark.
