Osage that’s laying on the ground.

[BowEd]

Beautiful character bow Pat.Saw a fence post with those exact wiggles in the bark the other day visiting the Amish here.He showed me a tree about a block away from the post with the same wiggles.

[Pat B]

Shannon(sawfiler) brought a load of snaky osage staves and billets to the Classic one year. Bows were made with all of them but only 2 survived. Snaky bows, especially with this much snakes, are hard to keep together because of the grain runoffs and some times one ring will go one way while the one below it goes another.
 This bow broke on one limb and Will had a snaky billet he replaced it with. He ended up with a pretty good match.
 So, Muskieman you can see with osage generally it doesn't matter because they are so rot resistant.

[Jim Davis]

I've come across small Osage limbs that have died on the tree and have lost their bark and sapwood. Thought I could break them off just to make things look neater. Nope! Toughest examples of wood I have come across.

[BowEd]

Working old dead hedge is a lot more work and a lot harder on the tools.Breaking off dead limbs or even twigs from a tree leaves sharp pointed skewers that get ya.

[Jim Davis]

Breaking off dead limbs or even twigs from a tree leaves sharp pointed skewers that get ya.

Yep. That's where the saw on my Swiss Army knife come in handy.

[Muskyman]

Went and got some of the Osage that was on the ground today.. turned out it wasn’t really on the ground. Also wasn’t quite the tree I thought it was either. I did get some pieces and what I think might make some billets.. A lot of it was very dry and checked but might be okay. Also found some insects had been busy on it but not to deep.. I’ll post some photos of it and the over all haul.

[Muskyman]

Insect photos first one is before I took the surface off with my draw knife

[Muskyman]

And after

[TimBo]

Looking good!  It's amazing how grungy they can look, yet how little you need to remove to get to some nice yellow wood.

[Muskyman]

Unfortunately most of this Osage is riddled with insect infestation.. I tried just getting a belly split out of a few of them and found signs of them on the belly split. I did get some billets but tossed the rest of it into my firewood pile. Probably just try to find some that’s still alive and harvest it for bow wood.