Going to try to build my first osage self bow this winter. Bought this stave and need professional opinions on whether this stave is good/bad or if it looks like it will even work. Any advice will be appreciated.

Send it to me and I'll find out for ya if it'll work or not      

Looks like a great novice stave to me  

Looks like you ought to make a bow out of it!  Enjoy!

That is a very good osage stave... no twist, big knots, or holes. It's stands quite straight, with straight grain... and the growth rings on the end show good thick growth rings with a high ratio of late wood to early wood. I don't know how much more you could ask for. That's nicer than 98% of the osage I've used...

If you've got a bandsaw, you could probably get 3 bows out of that!

that is a choice stave for all the reasons bowjunkie already pointed out, and will make a fine selfbow. the one thing nobody can tell from a photo is how dry it is at this point. would be good to know how long it has been the split you have in your hand so you can better gauge how much drier it needs to get reach the optimal mc.

Was split in Mid June.

it could take years for that stave to dry on its own.  I just built myself a hotbox for drying staves for about forty bucks.  I can't recommend "hunting the osage bow" by dean torges enough.  he takes you through the entire process from selecting the tree to applying finish... and he does it over the course of a month or two using a faster drying technique.  you couldn't spend a better 20 bucks than that book.

Miner was it a green Tree? if so you will not get a bow out of it this year unless you get it down to a bow blank. Then hide it in side for a few months. If you weight and do so every few weeks when she stops lossing a lot of weight fast you will know that she is nearly ready to start bending.

If you have a caul you can put her on it also as she dries and that will keep her from twisting and get the profile you want without heat.

Other will correct me if I am wrong for I am fairly new at this. Make sure your back and ends are sealed. I use wood glue or school glue myself.

That looks like the one I started to bid on.    

Hey, if you want to get on that thing this winter then you need to reduce it down to rough bow shape. Get it inside and under controlled conditions. Lay it flat.

First I'd make sure I had a safe back ring and then reduce from there. I like to seal the back/ends/fades with painter's tape. Once you notice the shrinkage/wrinkles in the tape it's usually safe to remove the tape for faster dying.

Couple months after that you should be able to do some heat treating. Luck........Art B

Echatham, from stump to working bow it's possible to make a high performance Osage bow in two-three months, depending on the density/quality of the wood of course. No steaming required, only dry heat for bends, corrections, tempering etc........Art B

It'll work, but like others above, make sure it's dry before you start bending it.  I think they say a year for every inch deep?  It will work though.  Good luck and make sure to measure twice, cut once and take your time!  Don't ask, just trust me on this.

-Jeremy  

Art ya thats why I recommended Hunting the Osage Bow... Dean shows us how.

Dean uses steam, I don't Echatham. Steam swells the wood's cells leaving you with less than optimum bow wood..........Art B

yeah i haven't used steam either, just cause my staves are already dry when i get them. i use dry heat for any straightening i have to do.  but his method of drying isn't just the steam, although he does say the steam will dry it a little... its the heatbox.

In "Hunting the Osage Bow", Dean Torges instructs about building a steam chamber in such a way as to use wet heat to allow correction to a stave worked down to a ring, roughed out and then coated with shellac.  The goal is to correct things that need to be corrected and to start with a more predictable piece.  

The steam chamber/tube is designed to allow the flow of steam and to avoid the collection of moisture on or in the wood. The shellac aids in this also.

A secondary goal is to reduce the moisture content of the green wood.  The act of heating the wood
does this.  

The instruction goes on to discuss a hot box that controls the further drying of the wood until it is able to be made into a bow.

I have used this method many times and build some very nice bows.

FYI for interested parties. Dean Torges does not advocate steaming staves for any purpose other than correcting them or introducing reflex. if you are steaming osage that was a live tree a few days ago it is likely that it will come out of steam chamber a with a little less moisture in than it started with. steaming dry wood is a very bad idea. Dean advocates reducing green staves to a rough bow blank then allowing them to stabilize for a month or so, then begin to force dry them at low temp in a hotbox.

I would add that it is debatable whether or not any issue from swelling of wood cells resulting from steaming really green wood is measurable in a finished bow.

Dean advocates steaming only green/wet wood whose cells haven't yet begun to dry or shrink.

I've made a number of selfbows with both steamed wood and non-steamed, as well as dry heat corrected/shaped and no heating whatsoever, and following any such treatments, if otherwise seasoned and crafted equally, I haven't been able to detect a difference in the resulting bows. There are benefits though to steaming.

In my experience, once adequately dried, previously steamed wood takes no more or less set than non-steamed, has the same working, resilience, resistance, and shooting properties, is equally durable and long-lived. My favorite osage selfbow was steamed as a youngster and still stands straight 10 years, countless days hunting, and thousands of shots later. There are many other factors that play an infinitely bigger role in determining a piece's worth as bow wood. imo

My $.02

Oh, and ya get what ya pay for  

were we all typing at the same time? LOL...

Osage is so unique that one can make all kinds of claims, and you wouldn't know if it's the wood's properties that makes a great bow or the bowyer, or both. It can be tortured with steam and heat,  repeatedly in some instances. It'll take more abuse than any wood I can think of. So when I see claims of great bows being made from this wood guys, well, you're kinda talking to the choir here.

Personally, I don't like hot boxes or hot attics for speed drying this particular wood. And I don't see any need for steam for this gentleman's stave unless he's looking to recurve. His only concern at this point should be to get his stave reduced for faster drying, which reduces the risk of drying checks also. Do this, and in a month or two, he can do some heat tempering if he likes, flipping tips or make any needed corrections using a heat gun.........Art B