osage logs

[IDreamofOsage]

Got three nice osage logs yesterday from a tree trimmer.  I love it when I get a call to pick up  logs like these.




Even I can follow rings like these. LOL

[Weylin]

nice score!

[SA]

awesome, i found a crew the other day and got a nice hackberry log , they were mexican and spoke very little english and my spanish isn't that good. so when i asked them for the log they looked at me like i was crazy but then said "sure" ,it was in south okla. and there are tons of osage down there but i don't know how to ask them to save it for me i need spanish lessons bad anyway nice score.

[toomanyknots]

Man, I never get thick rings like that. My rings are almost always paper thin. Super aggravating to chase, but is supposed to be denser better wood with thin rings, right? I don't know. Nice score for sure, those should definitely make some nice splits and staves. You know that pith hole in the middle with all the other little holes? Well one year I cut some good sized osage tree, and after splitting the upper section of it out I saw a bunch of pith holes going threw the wood like those. For some reason I thought they were bug damage or something so I deserted all the staves from the upper section of wood, only come to my senses a year later after they were actually infected with bugs. Man I beat myself up all the time for that.

[IDreamofOsage]

well got them split and the ends sealed, gonna try to peel the bark tomorrow.

[osage outlaw]

Sweet.  Looks like there might be some belly splits in there.

[Steve Milbocker]

A blind man could chase those rings! Great score.

[osage outlaw]

You could tell by the bark that it was a younger tree.  Being that big, it had to have thick rings.  That's the kind of bark I look for when trying to find an osage tree to cut.  On older osage trees, the bark has a different look to it.  It is rougher.  At least the trees around me are like that.  I'm not sure if it is the same in other areas.

Have fun drawknifing those staves 

[IDreamofOsage]

@ Weylin, Thanks.

@ SA, luckily my tree trimmers all speak english, maybe you could show them a picture of the hedge apple? Id try most anything before I'd learn to speak spanish. LOL 

@ TooManyKnots, I think you are right, that the tighter the rings the denser the wood. Have also heard that 4 to 6 rings per inch is ideal for osage.

@ Osage Outlaw, There are three or four staves there that should be good for two or three bows. I dont have any expierience with belly splits. Can you give me any advice?

@Steve, thats what I was thinking. LOL

[osage outlaw]

I like to look at the smaller end and take a sharpie and lay out the staves I see in the chunk of wood. 





Make sure you don't make them to small and ruin the whole thing.  I start the split with a hatchet and then use wedges to take it down the rest of the way.  Some times I will use two hatchets to start the split if it the wood is wider than one hatchet.  If the wood is straight and knot free, it should split where you want it to.  If it has some character it might be a little more difficult.  If you are lucky, it will follow a growth ring most of the way.  Make sure to seal the backs of your belly splits.

[IDreamofOsage]

Thank You. I wasn't sure if you could do the belly splits without a froe. Do they split out easier while they are green or when seasoned? Obviously they would cure faster if they where split out while green.

[osage outlaw]

I have only split them when they are green and it worked well for me.  I think what affects it the most is the shape and amount of character in the wood.  A fro would probably work.  I have been searching the local antique/junk stores looking for one.  If you are going to leave the bark on the staves for any amount of time it would be a good idea to spray them with insecticide.

[toomanyknots]

I would think that everything splits easier when green, but osage seems to be as easy to split after being dry or even more so sometimes than when it was green. But like, with hackberry, it splits pretty easy when green, but is alot harder to split after it drys. Big osage like in the picture osage outlaw posted can be a pain for me to split though. I agree that character or knots especially make splitting harder and you have more of a chance of running into a trouble spot with logs like that. Alot of times I find osage easier to split than other woods, the heartwood seems to be more brittle and prone to splitting apart to begin with, and once you get the split going it ain't to hard to keep it going. Where as I have had some hard times getting some while woods split...

[IDreamofOsage]

@ Osage Outlaw, I went down and gave it a try, worked like a dream. Guess I was worried about nothing. LOL I've seen some pretty good deals on froes on ebay. I was thinking about trying to make one out of a lawn mower blade and a section of pipe. May give it a try this week.

@ toomanyknots, Same here on the osage when I have split dry logs they seem to split cleaner than green ones. I was suprised that the belly splits came apart real clean, not what I was expecting.

[IDreamofOsage]

There was enough sap under the bark that I was able to peel it right off by hand.