Just purchased some Orange Osage staves online, I am new too this species of wood and thought I would give it a try since I noramally work only with whitewoods, any advice on working with this wood is certainly appreciated, thanks
Get "Hunting the Osage Bow"by Dean Torges
available at Kustom King.He is a master
at coaxing bows out of that yaller wood.
Ross
ditto
You are going to be pleasantly surprised. Osage is much harder to work with tools, but much easier to get a bow from.
Use bright light - like sunshine - to help chase a ring.
Don't let it scare you like it did me.
I am a novice,and love to work with Osage now that I did a couple flat bows that turned out to be good shooters.
It is quite easy to work with, and straightens / bends well with heat. Being a very dense and hard wood, when you slip with a tool it creates a small mistake, softer woods create big mistakes from small slips.
I had trouble chasing a ring untill I got under good light.Then it was easy.
I just wish we had some up here.
Pete
Do you know when they were cut? You might see if you could find out. Drying is a factor with any wood!
They were cut 8 months ago
Follow Deans book. They probably will not be dry unless they were reduced down to near bow size. I assume all staves with bark on are still green.
Im not looking to buy a book, im just wanting to find some advice from you guys that have worked with this wood, I should be fine I will show you guys how it turns out, thanks for the help
You can make them narrower and shorter than whitewood bows. Jawge
Osage is ok, I guess:)
I bought a couple of 46 inch staves, I plan on making a couple of highly reflex sinew backed bows, I have a couple of sinew back bows that I made from fruitless mulberry that are 37 and 38 inches, I have heard you can make osage bows about an inch narrower than most bows is this true ?
Silent Bear -
take a look in the Build-along section. There are enough words and pictures there that even I made a shooter.
My advice (which I rarely follow myself) is to reduce one (10 of the staves to near floor tiller stage and then coat it with a sealant like watery wood glue or even light floor wax and then forget about it until August. Also - I used sinew on a few osage bows and found it did little to improve the end result. I realize you are pushing the bow-length to draw limits so I will shut up now other than to point you at the aforementioned Build-Along section of this website.
va
thanks va I will go check it out, anything over 50 inches is not worth the extra effort of sinewing in my opinion, how long was your bow ?