Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: gstoneberg on January 24, 2011, 09:50:48 pm
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Thought I'd do a little stave splitting aerobics tonight with the new osage we got yesterday. The wood looked reasonably straight from the outside, but when I split it in half...not so much on the inside.
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves1-1_24_11.jpg)
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves2-1_24_11.jpg)
I should have quit there, but I was too curious if it would split into 4ths or whether I'd just have a bunch of billets. The first half split nicely. The second...not so much.
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves3-1_24_11.jpg)
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves4-1_24_11.jpg)
Anybody want a fresh osage stave that tapers from 4" to 1/4"?
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves5-1_24_11.jpg)
If I know Murphy, they'll start twisting now so they're more fun later. That second one from the right looks pretty good, might have to take that one in and try to keep it straight. I'll split the rest of this batch in half. They sure looked straighter when we were in the woods. ::)
George
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Hey! I know this goofy guy down in Texas that seems to fall in love with the worst pieces of wood. You could probably sucker him into buying it all.
Lemme see, I got his information here somewhere...let's see, AH! Here it is, his name is gstoneber...uh, never mind!
Well, at least you still got that slingshot, right?
>:D >:D >:D
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Very funny. :D Sure, I still have the slingshot. It's way over on the right side of the pile, I won't get there for a couple weeks at the rate I'm going. I'm not sure there's enough heartwood to even split that one.
George
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George, can you cut them up and re-piece them as billets?
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The straightness wouldn't bother me as much as the big knots where limbs were.I am with
Pat,looks like you might get some pretty good billits. :)
Pappy
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Yes, some of those will have to be billets. I'm not a great splice cutter, but passable. I try more crooked wood than I used to these days, but some of those limbs are too big to work around. This osage was in an abandoned farmstead and looked to have been planted in rows right in the yard by the road. The man who cut it for me said they commonly did that years ago so they'd have a ready supply of fenceposts. He was cutting to fill an order he had for 2000 posts. The trees were far enough apart to really bush out. I saw some really crooked limbs which would make cool snake bows if they aren't too full of knots. Hope to go back in a couple weeks. The farmer wanted to see a completed bow and like an idiot I forgot to take one with me last time.
George
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George, pick one stave out and challenge yourself with it. Make a bow! Don't worry about weight but concentrate on working through the problems and get the limbs bending as evenly and as together as you can. You will be surprised how much wood like that can teach you if you let it. ;)
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I certainly will Pat, thanks. I have 2 osage bows I'm working on now and both have me scratching my head at the tillering. Since neither one has to be done fast I've been working a little and thinking about it a lot. Hoping to learn from both of them. After these two are done I think I'll splice together a nice straight one for a change. ;D I promised I'd build one for the Care Center in town's fund raiser auction and don't want to put it off too long.
George
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Good news, I finished splitting the staves from this log fetching endeavor and got 1 really nice straight one:
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves1-3_12_11.jpg)
I'll be impatiently waiting for that one to cure for the next year.
Also got a unique split out of the slingshot stave. I tried to split it in half to see if the split would go down one of the branches. Best laid plans...the split rotated 90 degrees and perfectly divided the 2 branches in half.
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves3-3_12_11.jpg)
George
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George, that last one is going to make a fantastic character bow! :o :D
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I'm not sure there's enough heartwood in the limb to make a bow. That's where I wanted the bow to be and why I brought that piece home. Is that what you were thinking? I'll know better after it seasons awhile. It will be very crowned too as it is was a small tree.
George
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Can you make an endless loop sting with 3 loops?
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George I was just kidding but you will be surprised how little osage it takes to build a good bow. Just peel the bark and make a bow with sapwood and heartwood on the small stuff.
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George, that last one is going to make a fantastic character bow! :o :D
Yeah, but how do you make a string with 3 loops ?
And on a 3 limbed bow do you have the extra limb top or bottom?... Just askin' ;D
Del
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Aha, good. I wasn't seeing that good a bow in there Pat. But, I would put the extra limb on the bottom, Del. Then, I could splice another chunk of wood down there and use the bow as one of those multi-footed canes when I need help walking in the woods. ;D
George
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I can see a bow in them all. I'm like pappy straightness dos'nt bother me if I deside I want to make a bow out of it. As long as the tiller straight the vertical lines won't matter as long as the tips line up with the handle.
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Geore, you have some character stave there for sure. Jawge
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That's all I get Jawge, character (another name for crooked bow wood ;)). Sometime it'd be nice to make a bow from a straight piece. ::) Here's a batch of seasoned osage splits we did this weekend as well.
(http://72.64.80.21/gks-pictures/staves2-3_12_11.jpg)
Some are sort-of straight, but there's a bunch of side bend, deflex, reflex and sometimes all of the above. I would swear on a stack of Bibles that this tree was dead straight when I cut it. ??? There's also some weather splits in this for some reason on the back. I think this log was laying against the ground when the wood rack sunk with the weight of the wood on the soft Texas clay. Also borers in this. Need to select one for the bow trade.
I have 2 or 3 more long quarters from this tree to split. It was nice to have my 20 year old nephew visiting this past week. Young men and a splitting maul go together so well. ;D
George
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George, it is good that dry osage heat straightens well with dry heat and steam works well with wet wood. :) Jawge
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Yes it is Jawge. Unfortunately, because this wood was near the bottom of the pile and stored outdoors, even though it is 2 years seasoned it still acts a little like wet wood and can split when dry heated. Other quarters that came off the top of this pile had no problems with dry heat and bent readily. Makes it hard to know what to do. I tried to bend a nearly finished bow this past weekend and it split so bad I suspect the bow is ruined. Weird, in that the bow had taken no set so I thought the wood was fully dry.
George
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To bad about the cracks George. Looks to be a few bows in those staves though. Maybe billets on the right?
Darcy :)
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Hey Darcy, I'm sure that picture looks familiar to you. ;) Anyway, that's what I thought too. There's another split out of that log not in the picture that has a huge limb in it. That one's a billet candidate too. I'm thinking seriously of taking some of the shorter crooked billets I've got and splicing up a character bow for the exchange.
George
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Hey Darcy, I'm sure that picture looks familiar to you. ;) Anyway, that's what I thought too. There's another split out of that log not in the picture that has a huge limb in it. That one's a billet candidate too. I'm thinking seriously of taking some of the shorter crooked billets I've got and splicing up a character bow for the exchange.
George
That'd be cool George.......who doesn't like character bows? ;D
Darcy
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In all honesty, when I started cutting osage i would take anything I could find. A year or so into building my stash I wouldn't have wasted my time on the stuff in your first pictures, not worth the headaches.
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I've gone through an evolutionary process in my bow making. At first I wouldn't even try a stave if it wasn't straight. Then I began to want the difficult ones to see if I could make a bow where it was hard. Now, I'm playing with heat bending to turn unusable wood into good wood. And honestly, my success rate has gone down quite a bit as I experiment. But, it's a hobby and it's just wood, so I don't care. Now that I need to make a bow turn out for the exchange, I'll probably take better wood, or use splicing to straighten a crooked stave. Makes the odds go up. But, I get bored very quickly if there's not a challenge beyond the norm.
Having said all that, this Texas wood has a propensity for going crooked once split that I did not see up north. I definitely took some wood that was questionable in that batch that started this thread. That's because somebody else cut it and I just picked it up. When I do the cutting I choose only straight trees, but even so, I still get crooked staves. Murphy loves me.
George
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George,it looks like you cut your wood in the same area I do.I see very little wood any straighter than yours,(in east Texas ,anyway). ;D God Bless
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Pete,
Yea, quite a bit north of you, but about that far east. They came out of a grove, planted by the road. Every tree about 10' from its neighbor. All thick as heck and crooked as all get out. Most of those crooked ones I planned from the start to be billets, but they were already cut to length. I didn't spot wood that was twisted as well as I should have. Live and learn.
Have you been out hog hunting lately? I took my brother and nephew out to the lease last weekend and they got 3 with the rifles (120#, 220# and 20#) all were boars. Just had some pulled pork BBQ a few minutes ago, compliments of that big one. I sure wish the osage went over that far west. It would make getting bow wood a lot more enjoyable.
George