Osage moister content

[Stick Bender]

Hi Guys I have been playing around a bit lately with force drying osage & hickory I was just wondering what is the ideal moister content for osage is ? after force drying & re acclamation  I have some of the staves down to 9-9.5 % moister level , I have double check & re calibrated  the meter I'm using a non invasive meter the actuly measures internal moister so I'm confident those readings are accurate came up with some interesting results on the hickory for another thread.

[George Tsoukalas]

I like osage and all woods except hickory at 8-10%. I like hickory at 6-8%. Jawge

[Pat B]

I agree with George.

[mikekeswick]

Does your moisture meter have specific settings for different woods? Moisture meters are notoriously inaccurate but will let you know which way your wood is going.
To check if it is giving you the correct readings cut off a small piece of wood and weigh it on grain scales. Then put it in the oven for a few hours to get it to 0% m.c. then work out the weight loss and its percentage of original weight.

[Stick Bender]

Yep the meter has calibration for specific density Mike of each wood plus temp. Correction  this one is not a surface probe meter it puts a electric field inside the wood I tested it against  known reference several times  , I had to deal with so much green wood in my first year of bow making I have kinda got anal about dry wood . I bought a surface probe meter and tested it out it was terribly inaccurate  I sent it back the more dense the wood the more in accurate they got in my case , my nephew is a  superintendent for a large commercial historic building restoration company here in Chicago they manufacture  matching moulding material they have all the test equipment for moister content , he tested 2 of my staves they came up with in  .008 % of the numbers I got

[Eric Krewson]

There is no point in going lower than the ambient MC for your area because you osage will settle out at that MC even after you put finish on bow. Where I live the ambient MC is 12%.

I would imagine the bows I store in an airconditioned house will hold a lower MC than the ones I store in my shop. 

The good thing  about osage is it isn't very moisture sensitive like some white woods like hickory.

We have been in a three month drought, I need to check my hickory bow blanks to see just how low they have gone during this period.

[Badger]

   I agree with Eric, whatever your bow is going to settle in at is about the best place to build them. I like my osage below 10% but it seems to perform pretty well at around 10%.