I was waiting on a cool morning before I tackled a hill hillside full of blown down hickories. It was also opening day of deer season but the wind was wrong for my stand so I went to the woods with a chainsaw instead of a bow.

Four hours of cutting and splitting on the side of a steep ridge yielded this load.



I continued the work today making bow staves out of big slabs.

I marked a kerf line to cut with my saw. My goal was to have square sided staves about two and a half inches across



Split on the kerf.



I ended up with 20 really nice staves and a pile of firewood. Next is bark removal and it isn't going to be like it is in the spring. This bark is on tight.

Eric that looks great. Looks a lot like the haul I got of black Cherry the other day. I have to try that trick with the kerf on some of the bigger splits.
I'll swap you a nice stave or two  

wow, lots of work, good looking stuff, too bad I am not closer, I would be bugging you....

Great looking stuff.  Sounds like you got quite the workout.

It's fun work though... Nice haul!

That's a bunch of work but a really nice haul. I'd take 20 staves instead of a deer anyday!

i wish i would have seen this before i had ended up with the few odd splits i ended up with from my gift of a hickory log . some of my splits ended up being billets for future takedowns. rv

When I split the larger pieces out of the 2 logs I cut, the splits ran as straight as an arrow. With really straight grain it is OK to cut a kerf to split on.

These staves are for my future bowmaking students. I teach them for free and supply the materials so I would rather they worked on a hickory stave than a piece of my osage.

well see problem solved on the bark too Eric. They should learn all the fun stuff. Nice load.

If I could find hickory that would split that straight I wouldn't mind scraping some bark.  Nice looking stuff.

I debarked 5 or 6 staves a day. The last batch I left bark side down on the grass, in the shade, for several days before I got to them so they wouldn't dry out. The bark on these staves came off almost like in the spring. I could have hit on something by letting the bark hydrate on the wet lawn for a few days.

I gave three staves to a friend who lives on the lake. He said he would pitch his in the lake until he can get time to be-bark them. We will see if the bark slips after a good soaking.

Several days of draw knifing bark and I have them all peeled, shellacked and drying.

nice tidbit there eric thanks, I wonder if you steamed the bark if that would work also.

Yes, if your readComstock's book "The Bent Stick", He relates the use of a hot shower, for loosening the hold of hickory bark!

Wish I lived close, Eric, would enjoy helping knife off that bark!  

Great work!