109 staves from 1 osage tree

[Dan Landis]

WOW!  What a haul, I need a couple of days of rest just thinking about the work you put into them.....Dan

[psychmonky]

Lol he started in july....so tell the kids it took him six months. He has been working the wood from ONE TREE FOR SIX MONTHS!!!! And that is just getting it ready to work into bows. He hasn't started the fun stuff yet.

Scott

[mmgrode]

That's a labor of love right there!  Congrats on having a significant stash of quality osage.  Few days of hard work and you're into wood for a long time!  Awesome find and good on you for putting this down tree to good use!

[scrub-buster]

It was a lot more than a few days of hard work

[razorback]

I am still cleaning up a cherry tree that blew done in hurricane Irene and that i cut up on sept 11 this last year. I will end up with maybe 25 staves and that was a lot, I thought. Great job on saving a downed tree from simple rotting away. There is a lot of energy in trees that are saved and not simply cut down. Let me know if you would be interested inswapping a downed stave.

[snag]

"A labor of love" comes to mind. Heck of a lot of work but soooooo well worth it. It would have been a crime to let all that great wood just lay there. Why to go! Years of great bow building wood. You are now "bow wood RICH"....  

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Originally posted by bjansen:
That tree is one in a milion.....have never seen anything like it.  Outstanding!

Ditto! We have some huge osage trees around here, but never seen anything like that one nor as straight as that one. I'd say that was the mother of all osage trees in all respects. You should be set for staves for a lifetime unless you sell em all off. I'd hang onto those as long as I possibly could if I were you just so you don't have to go through that again anytime soon.
Having worked up a pile of osage myself I know all too well the intense amount of agonizing back breaking work that goes into it. My shoulders are shot to hell now and can't do that kind of grueling work anymore, so I guarantee you earned every single stave.

BRAVO!!  

[Pete W]

So the big question is....
What do you plan to do with all these staves?
Private stash of future bows, or sell some?
Pete

[fish n chicks]

Pete beat me to it. I was going to ask when you were gonna start selling some, but I just thought about how much time and crazy energy was spent in harvesting such an amazing bounty. There is about a snowball's chance in hell I could afford one of them beauties!

Just seeing all that hustle makes me wanna get a new Stihl...

[David Yukon]

Sound like you guys ant some!?!?!??

[scrub-buster]

This tree was one in a million.  I am lucky enough to live on 75 acres of mostly osage and there isn't another one any where near as good as this tree.  I'll keep looking though.  I want to keep most of the staves.  I will bring some to the Tenn. Classic this spring to trade.  If I sell any, I will post them in the Classifieds.

[2treks]

That is pretty cool,

[JMartin]

Yep Two Tracks, I was thinkin the very same thing!

[scrub-buster]

I built a hide-a-way rack for most of them.  It rolls under my work bench and out of the way.

 

 

[WestTexan]

Osage Outlaw is right... Your set for a long time.

[KellyG]

What you did not use osage to make your rolling rack. That is a great Ideal though.

[snag]

I'm up for adoption....  

[scrub-buster]

It would look a lot better if I had made it from osage.  I used cheap wheels on it and now I'm paying for it.  I guess I exceeded the weight limit.  They are falling apart.  I got some heavy duty ones to put on it.  The bad part is I have to unload it to replace them.

[WestTexan]

If you lived a little closer I'd build you one out of sq. tubing.

[highpoint forge]

It's time I harvedted the giant I found.