First osage

[DC]

I'm chasing a ring on my first Osage(thanks Goat). Just for practice and to try and sneak up on it I aimed at the first ring under the sapwood. As I went through the sapwood I noticed the wood turning yellow(cool) and then I started to feel the crunch of the early wood. Looking at the end of the piece it looked like I should feel the crunchies before before I hit the ring. Oh,it just occurred to me that the change to yellow(from sap to heart) doesn't necessarily coincide with a ring. I can feel the drawknife starting to skate on the wood, does that mean I'm at the top of the ring? The ring I'm chasing is rather thin but I thought I would chase it first and then chase one ring to the decent one underneath it. Does that look like a good ring or should I go to the next thick one. The billet is quite skinny so the best I can get is about 1 1/8-1 1/4" at the fades. If I go deeper into the wood I'll be losing width. Any advice so far?

[Stick Bender]

I have only chased rings on 4 different osage staves now but I have a couple clip on shop lights that I put around the stave when you get the light at the right angle the sap wood heart wood contrast will pop off at you like a neon sign if your draw knief is skating your probably on the ring I found the lights are key .

[osage outlaw]

If you aren't sure, stop when you get to the crunchy layer and switch to a scraper to remove it.  Once you get the crunchy layer scraped off you have a clean ring. 

[JW_Halverson]

If you aren't sure, stop when you get to the crunchy layer and switch to a scraper to remove it.  Once you get the crunchy layer scraped off you have a clean ring.

He ain't lyin'!!!  Th' man's done this before and lived to tell the tale!

No shame in scrapin'.  If you can get your hands on more of this stuff, you will get practice with the draw knife and will learn to control the tool better. As well as getting that "feel" for it that will allow you to get about 90% of the early growth as you chase the growth ring. 

About time you finish your apprenticeship and now try some journeyman level wood!   

[DC]

How much leeway do you have within a ring? Let's assume the late wood is 1/4" thick. How much can you cut into this before it's considered violated? I ask this because as I'm scraping off the early wood there are little nooks and crannies where you have to be removing a little late wood along with the early wood.

[SLIMBOB]

From the "maybe not that important" dept....Rings will often become more porous as you get deeper into them.  You can often see this on an end cut looking at the rings.  More white porous type wood in the earlier part of the hardwood ring.  For that reason I want the top most (latest growth) part of the ring as my back.  But the leeway is really more liberal than that.  Don't bust through the ring and your probably fine.  Perfect world, I want all of that ring if I can get it. 

[osage outlaw]

Use a goose neck scraper for the concave areas and nooks and crannies.

[---GUTSHOT--->]

If you aren't sure, stop when you get to the crunchy layer and switch to a scraper to remove it.  Once you get the crunchy layer scraped off you have a clean ring.

+1

[bentstick54]

I would keep practicing on the ring you are on, but it being so thin in the center of the stage I would then go down to that next thicker ring. That way you have a little forgiveness if you do scrape abit of that ring off. Try to keep from it if you can, but I think as long as you dont scrape clear through it you are generally ok. IMHO minor variations in final ring thickness is not as critical as a clean, violation free back. I am still a rookie but so far this has worked for me.

[DC]

Look at the yaller chips under my workbench. I'm a bowyer now

[mikekeswick]

Here is a trick for you
Chase the earlywood ring above the latewood ring you want. Try not to expose any of the latewood. Once you have the whole stave down to your earlywood ring then sharpen your scraper so you can wipe shavings off with it and very lightly remove the earlywood. Try to work in long strokes and don't get stuck in a small area. Even use 120 grit for the tough to reach spots.
Aim for perfection with the latewood ring. No cut fibers

[DC]

Thanks for all the help. I finished one limb last night. I'm reasonably happy with it. One discovery I found was when I shellacked it for the night there was a couple of early wood spots that showed up real well. Where I was on the late wood the shellac was shiny, where there was early wood the shellac soaked in and left a matt finish.To fussy to use it as a method while scraping but it does work as a check on your job at the end of the day.

[DC]

I'm working on the other billet. They are sisters so I didn't expect too many surprises. I got it down to a ring or so above the ring I want. Right now it looks like a contour map with lines around the high and low spots/sections. A couple of times I've scraped what I thought was a high spot only to find it getting bigger because it was a low spot. How do you tell the high from the low?

[SLIMBOB]

Done that my-own-self.   

[DC]

Well, so much for that. One of the billets was quite narrow to start with and I think by the time I get a ring there won't be enough wood to make a bow. It will only be about 1/2" wide mid limb. The outside rings were almost as thin as yew rings so I kept going through. I'll probably never see another piece of osage so there is not much sense pissing myself off trying to salvage this. They will make good garden stakes.