opinion before advancing?

[rkeltner]

 the owner of the proberty i hunt deer on has an overabundance of osage (yeaH, BIG PROBLEM, RIGHT?) well he cut several pieces for firewood and left them to dry. they've been there abt. a year and have abundant sign of the dreaded osage borer (sawdust in various places). several of these appear to be very stright with no twist (by my eyes, but i've been wrong before!). would any of you be inclined to try to make a bow out of these or would you make use of the stnding timber? btw, i have access to all kinds of stnding wood at this property, hickory, hackberry, osage,black and honey locust, black walnut and cherry, and others i haven't bothered to i.d. yet.

[gstoneberg]

My answer is yes...do both.  Split one of the cut pieces and see what it looks like.  Osage is not prone to rot like some other woods.  I have wood that I cut which has been stored outdoors untreated for 3 years.  It looks pretty bad.  The borers are in about an inch so I rip that much off with the draw knife and build the bow deeper in the stave than I normally would.  Here's what your wood will look like, notice the checking which was taken off with the borers:




Once you've removed the borer infested wood it works like any other stave.   I've even filled borer holes with glue and sawdust and made good bows, you can see the filled borer hole in the top limb of my takedown.



You should also cut some standing osage so you can get some clear staves seasoning.  Makes it a lot easier.  Next year about this time those will be ready to work.

Good luck.

George

[JW_Halverson]

I have long harbored a suspicion that the wood deeper into an osage stave might produce a better bow.  It has had plenty of time to age and for the resins to soak in making the heartwood "heartier".  The heartwood just below the sap would be young and inexperienced, so to speak.  By ripping down thru any borer damag e you will get to that lovely older wood.  But that's just a theory that I have no facts to back up.

I imagine Osage Outlaw could provide some material to test that theory from that 2 ft diameter Monster Log.  He should have a good supply of deep heartwood to test out. 

[gstoneberg]

I've used some belly splits and the only difference I've noticed is the ring thickness is usually a little better the further in the wood you go.  Love belly splits with borer damaged wood as they're always borer free.  I heat straightened  a 51" short bow yesterday which is the belly split from the one Rich (half eye) made his short osage bow from.  Nice thick rings, but it is gonna be only an inch wide.

George

[soy]

It sounds like you have hit a bow wood jackpot!!!! Cut and season the standing wood (all the different kinds)and find out about the cut stuff while it is drying you lucky duck

[osage outlaw]

George, you have some big borers down there.

JW, I will try to see if I can notice a difference, but I doubt I am a good enough bowyer to get reliable results. 

I found an osage tree laying in a creek bed that my brother-in-law cut many years before.  The bark was completely gone and there were some small holes in it.  It had decent rings and I just couldn't stand to see it rot away.  I had to remove several growth rings to get below the bug damage, but there were some great staves inside.  It was worth the work it took.  I have been trying to harvest only trees that have already fallen.  I will leave the live standing trees for the future.



Here you can see how deep they went.  The little black specks between the staves are what did the damage.

[crooketarrow]

  Mostly they only go down a ring or 3. I've fixed the holes by just filling the holes with super glue and saw dust. The last couple I built for myself I just left them. You have to really screw up not to be able to make and osage bow.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Grab some BL and hackberry while you are there, its nice wood to have around. 

[Eric Krewson]

Osage Outlaw, your stave has been attacked by powder post beetles, the one pictured above your post was hit by wood wasp larva. The wasp larva generally stay pretty shallow, I have seen powder post beetles start boring at the top of a log and come out the bottom, nasty little rascals.

[PEARL DRUMS]

What are you messing with that bug infested, thin ringed stuff anyway Mr. Clint "Mega Osage Stash" Anders? Get a good one out tight wad!

[gstoneberg]

I've had wood wasp borer holes go completely through bow limbs top to bottom, even after going an inch into heartwood to find a bow back.  Most of the time they only make minor forays into the heartwood and live in the sapwood.  Fortunately, they're so big you can normally get them all out or see where they go and fill them.  The only bow I've ever had blown up by borers was to a powder post beetle where I didn't see the tiny hole in the side of the limb.

George

[osage outlaw]

What are you messing with that bug infested, thin ringed stuff anyway Mr. Clint "Mega Osage Stash" Anders? Get a good one out tight wad!

Pearly, that bug infested thin ringed stuff is what your deer killin' bow is made from   That stave came from the same tree as the pictures above.  I pulled it out of the valley last winter before I started on the big one. 

I sure am glad we got the little beetles instead of those wasps.