Green Osage?

[JonW]

I was looking at duck calls with a guy from work the other day. Some were made from "green hedge". It is for sure Osage but is dark green. Also its not dyed. Some guys are faking it and using dye but there is actually legit green Osage. Someone clue me in.

[osage outlaw]

I've cut a lot of osage in my life.  Both for firewood and for bow making.  The only time I've seen it have a greenish tint was a tree that had large nails drove into it holding up tree stand steps.  The nails leached out into the wood and caused it to have a dark green/black stain within several inches of the nail.  You can see the stained osage in this picture.  It's from one of Stringman's posts. 

[osage outlaw]

I found a duck call website with green osage calls.  I copied and pasted this from the site:


This is an osage orange duck call made from osage orange that has been turned green by the minerals in soil. It is a rare wood to find and is very hard.

[nclonghunter]

ever seen nor heard of green Osage. Just some thoughts when I read this:

 I have been told that you can get metal shaving and bury them at the base of a dogwood tree and it will change the flower color?? Given what Osage Outlaw said above I wonder if you soaked metal shaving in a alcohol or water and put cut pieces of Osage in it to soak if it would turn green. Also seems like Aqua Fortis was used on maple wood for flintlock guns. I think it was green until heat was applied then it would turn brown. Makes since that metal would be a strong influence on Osage. Maybe a lot of iron in the ground could do it.

[Lumberman]

All wood species are subject to mineral streaks, oak maple basswood and others have grading rules specially provisioned for excessive mineral. I have had whole 16"x8' maple sapwood boards completely green with purple streaks so mineral ridden Osage sounds reasonable to me

[Lumberman]

The national hardwood lumber assoc defines it  as an olive to greenish black or brown discoloration of undetermined cause in hardwoods. The mineral streaking from metal is almost always bluish purple

[stickbender]

     Down in Florida, there is a pine, wood, that has been used in the early 1900's through the fiftys, and some of the sixties.  It is called Dade County pine.  Being it was in south Florida, and grew on land that was on old coral beds, and hence had absorbed the minerals.  It is as hard as oak, and when you try to cut it with a skill saw sparks will fly, making you think you hit a nail.  When you drive a nail in, you are not going to just pull it out, if you bend it.  You will either work for 20 to thirty minutes trying, or just wring the end off, and try another nail near it.  I would love to see how in the hell they cut and milled those trees, back then, since they did not have carbide tipped saw blades!  Houses made with that pine are still standing, and is very rot resistant, and very strong.  Usually heart wood was used.  It is very heavy.  It is a rich reddish orange color, and sometimes just looks like yellow pine.  But once you try to cut it, or drive a nail into it, you will know immediately what you have.

                                     Wayne

[turtle]

A fellow told my brother that he had some green colored Osage that he would give him once. But they never got together for him to get it. I always wondered if he really had Osage or not.

[riverrat]

i make dyes, with that said if that osage grew up in a place with lots of iron deposits in the ground, yep it could be green. if i want yellow i soak osage shavings and sawdust then boil it down till its kind of thick. if i want green i soak osage shavings and sawdust along with some rusty nails. works good. Tony

[mullet]

I've used copper nitrate to turn coral a blueish green color and iron nitrate to dye it red. These are both fertilizers so I wouldn't doubt if it was used on the fields where the osage was growing it could have absorbed the nutrients over time.

[Dakota Kid]

Tulip poplar is known to mineralize like that as well. They call it rainbow poplar. I found a few in the rack at the big box hardware last week actually. I've also seen it in hazel wood.