Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: nsherve on December 26, 2018, 08:22:03 am
-
I recently posted about putting some osage in my pond. Now I have a question about burying some. A lot of the subsoil on my land is red clay, with some sandy clay in areas. Do any of you have thoughts on this? Would it keep the worms out, you think? Of, even kill them if there are some already there? Would there be any negative effects on the wood? Positive effects?
-
Wouldnt hurt a thing. Leave it there for years, the sap will rot and be asy to remove. Consider how valied old fence post are. No downside except waiting forever to use them.
-
I may have enough time. I sunk 6 or 7 staves in the pond, about 30 or so in the barn that I sprayed diesel on (heard that'll keep the worms out...), and probably another 20-30 after I finish splitting. I need to split the ones in the barn some more, too. So, it'll be some time before I get to the ones in the water and ones that I may bury. Mostly worried about the worms, but I want to see if there's any difference in they way they turn out too.
-
To me it seems like burying and digging up staves sounds like more work than just removing the bark and sapwood with a draw knife.
-
Hey,
I have to agree with Osage Outlaw. You remove the sapwood, then spray it with some insecticide. Then you don't have to worry about dirt, oils, etc.
Steve
-
To me it seems like burying and digging up staves sounds like more work than just removing the bark and sapwood with a draw knife.
I'd have to think the same Clint. It's really not that difficult to remove sapwood, split Staves and seal ends and back. You'd still have to do it, plus Digg hole bury and Digg up again. It would probably still make a bow, but I doubt very much it'd be a better bow. It would be awful hard to monitor them.
Bjrogg
-
I can't imagine anything beneficial from burying wood. Even though osage is pretty tough you are still exposing it to bacteria.
-
It may be more work, and have no benefit, but I say go for it, I’m all about experimentation. If you have no shortage of Osage, do it. The least that will happen is you will learn something.
I’ve done things that took twice as long and cost me twice as much as buying something, but what’s the fun in that!
-
If you bury it in the top six inches or so there is lots of microbes, bugs etc. to degrade the wood. If you went down 2 or more feet it would probably just sit there staying wet. Water or dirt when you pull it out after "x" number of years your drying time starts then. All you are doing is postponing it. Because we are talking Osage here rot happens very slow, at least in the heartwood, but it does happen. If all the ancients had stored their bows in dry spots we would still have them so it seems to me that even though it's slow, if the wood is wet, it's degrading.
I think the only reason to do this is bug problem prevention and stripping the bark solves that.
So strip the bark, seal the backs, put it in a dryish place and send me a couple of staves for giving you such good advice ;D ;D ;D
-
I had a a friend that said an old timer made bows like that,, buried in the dirt to cure,,thats all I know,,it might reduce checking by slowing the drying process,,maybe you could strip the bark,, and skip coating,, if you bury it,,,, when I had staves in Texas,, the bugs were pretty bad,, so if it helped that,, I can see doing it,,
in a time without a steel draw knife or store bought varthane to coat the back,,,, these techniquues probably were of great value,, now they are interesting but I doubt any advantage over more modern techniques to cure the wood,,but fun to try,, I always enjoy seeing how an ancient man would have to resolve issues like this,, -C-
-
I don't know how bad the bugs are here in west AL. This is the first one I've cut down and gotten fresh. The first that I acquired from a cousin was tore up with wormholes, but he had left it out in his yard for over a year.
As far as I've heard and seen, osage doesn't rot easily. I've seen them coming from my wife's pawpaw's old fence lines that his dad had put in around ww2 time frame with really hard non-rotted wood. They were way too twisted and knotted up for me, though...
Maybe I'll put it in a really soggy bottom. I'd assume the sapwood'll rot off pretty quick down there.
-
Bury it shallow if you're trying to rot the sapwood. You've probably noticed how fence post rot more at ground level.
-
Like was said above it would be easier to remove the bark and sapwood while it is still green. I don't think burying it would be a big help and could cause problems. You will still have to dry the wood once you get it back out of the ground, adding more time to the process.
-
Pat B, do you have any thoughts on what kind of problems it could cause? Yea, I understand that it needs to dry after pulling it out. I'm taking the bark and sapwood off a couple right now.
I think it'll season a bit different in the dirt, clay especially because of the way it holds moisture and can get really dry in parts of the year. I plan to find out how it is after a year. Of course, the moisture can be different year to year...
-
I understand your quest for new methods and ideas on dealing with wood. When I started out making bows 20 years ago I had a host of ideas I thought would be better than the standard way of doing things. Try as I might, my "new" methods just didn't work out and I reverted to the tried and true methods of the bow making masters of the time.
My only oddball idea that worked really well was my tillering gizmo.
Get out your drawknife, remove the bark and sapwood from your staves, paint the ends and backs with 4 coats of shellac and put them out of the weather to dry. It is unlikely that putting the wood in a pond or burying it in the ground is going to accomplish anything except a bunch of extra work for you.
I have put up around 300 staves using the method I mentioned. I have also ruined at least 30 trying oddball methods of quick drying green osage before I went back to the method stated in Dean Torges book "Hunting the Osage Bow", at which point I never lost another stave.
-
Ever see an old buried fence post not full of checks and cracks you have to piss with? I haven't.
-
All you will gain is wet wood today and same thing when you recover them.
-
We all work hard to get our bow wood to the optimum M/C so we can make bows that achieve their full potential. I have no problem with experimentation, after all, that's how we all got here where we are in wood bow building. I can see trying this method on one or 2 staves(if you have plenty to work with) but you are asking folks that have hundreds of years of accumulative knowledge and not heeding their advise. Why not spend you time prepping your staves in a tried and true method so you can build the best bows of your ability.
We had a guy here a few years ago that heard soaking your staves in urine was the best method to use. It's obvious if you have read through our pages of info that that method hasn't been used, at least nobody has admitted it.
-
And not to mention that most of the guys on this forum don't have osage readily available to them.
The osage bow I'm finishing up right now is from a $100 stave that my wife bought me for Christmas 2 years ago. I saved it until now because I wanted to make sure my skills were at a point where I wouldn't mess up this treasured piece. The thought of just tossing staves in a pond or burying it to experiment seems wasteful.
I really am considering driving to AL to help you process all of this osage, as I understand you don't have much time to devote to this. Let me know if you are interested, and I'll try and convince my wife.
-Ben
-
Hmm, kinda reminds me of mullet's patented magic buffalo whiz cure-all for perfecting inadequate staves.
-
Pat B, I ask if anyone has tried it to see what they have found. Maybe I've missed it, but it seems that nobody has. If they haven't then how can they advise me that it's a bad idea? The way you come across with this response makes me feel that you think I'm an idiot... Yes, the vast majority of the folks in this forum have much more experience than I. That's why I ask questions, and I greatly appreciate the responses of information. Just telling me I should not, with no hands on knowledge, is opinion. While I greatly appreciate opinions also (whether I also get hands on experience info or not), I have found throughout my life that it's not the same thing.
If I had to pay money for this wood, I wouldn't try it out. All I had to spend was time and gas money.
Now, if I'm coming across as an ass, I apologize. Please carry on.
-
We don't have experience doing it ourselves because others have done this before us and told us it doesn't work. It's a logical fallacy to think we have to repeat the experiment time and time again. If I wasn't allergic to Osage I would be glad to come remove sapwood and seal staves. I'm just in Escambia county. If it were any other wood I'd be there already.
-
like i said, I had a friend that said an old timer made bows like that,, so it has been done,, I think if you took off the sap wood, it would work better, I am just spit balling,, but it would act as a sealent to resist bugs and checking I think,,
I think leavingn the bark and sapwood,, will slow the process to much to be practical,, but with out the sap wood,, it might keep the bugs and checking at bay,, i have never tried this,, so am just speculating,,but am making a bow from a fence post,, so know it will hold up to being in the ground ,,,the guy I knew was from east Texas so the stave may have been buried in sandy soil,, aslo in TExas it was common for the old farm houses to be on osage pier and beam,, cause it did not rot, and the termites wouldnt eat it,,i actually owned a house builit like that,,
put a moisture meter on it before and after,, so you know how its working,, or worth the effort
-
I think it isn't whether it works or not , but rather there is a simple, somewhat easier and quicker way to do it. Of course, if you happen to have allergenic reaction to Osage, you will want a different method! Also, it depends on where you live and your climatic conditions. I don't think anyone one is attacking any one else's intelligence, either! Me, if I buried something, I'd probably forget where the heck it was without a big sign that said "Dig here in one year" - then I'd wonder if the sign was for me or the dogs! (lol). Try it and report the results!
Hawkdancer
-
nsherve, I think what Pat is getting at, in a nice way is this topic was beat in the ground a few years ago and there was even a magazine article about it. Bury your staves down here in Florida and they will look like Swiss cheese when you dig them up.
-
No nsherve, I don't think you are an idiot. It's your wood, you apparently have plenty of it and as I said I'm not against experimentation. Like Mullet said this subject has been beat in the ground and we as Admins and Mods have dealt with it many, many times over the last 12 or more years that I've been here on PA. My point is why buck a proven method if your goal is producing quality bow wood. I've seen all too many times what Mother Nature does as far as curing bow wood and usually it ain't pretty.
I have a fence post that was in the ground for over 60 years. I've had it for 4 or 5 years now but when I got it it was full of checks, has worm holes in it but I will say it is hard as a rock. Whether a bow can be made with it is still to be determined. Just finding usable wood for a bow will be a daunting task.
There are folks here on PA that would love to have a piece of osage to build a bow with. Putting an unusable piece of osage in the ground or in the lake as an experiment makes more sense to me than using perfectly good osage for the experiments. Just seems more practical to me.
So you do whatever you want but when you ask for advise expect to get it whether it's what you want to hear or not.
-
Pat B, I am planning to put one with huge knots and too much twist, or one too short for me (too much for me, anyway) in this experiment of mine, if I do do it. So, not one that I think is great...
I think, as far as fence posts go, the checks and splits have a lot to do with there being a lot of the post being exposed to the weather all year long for extended periods of time. I also think they may have been put in that while green, which could also have something to do with it. Once again, I have never done this so I want to see how it is when completely buried. I guess I have missed conversations of this same idea... Also, as I've said, I do really appreciate the thoughts folks have in response.
-
I think Mullet and Brad may have touched on the important part. How wet is your ground? If you live in Arizona burying it in the dry(ish) sand might be the perfect method of slowing the drying to prevent checking. Around here the wood would just get wetter.
-
Nsherve, you'll have a hard time finding anyone more patient and willing to try help answer someone's questions than Pat. We see and ask the same questions over and over on this site. We don't think any of them are idiots. It's good to ask questions. It's how we learn. How we improve. How our equipment improves. Sometimes it gets hard to answer the same questions over and over again, but Pat B is one of the guys you can count on to help out answering questions. He is honest with his answers and sometimes that's not what the person asking the question really wants to hear. I'm I'm not just talking about your questions. I'm talking about lots of questions. It's better to tell a person that their tiller isn't right and where to remove wood to make it right than to just say nice bow. We are all very passionate about our hobby. Sometimes it hurts our pride when one of our flaws are pointed out. There are very few people on this site that are trying to hurt someone's feelings. I honestly can't think of any.
I do understand your wanting to experiment. I do think your idea of burying a poor stave is a good one to cure you curiosity. My curiosity has got me asking a question though. I'm just wondering if you tried preparing any of those staves using the method so many have advised. As far as I know it's the safest most dependable method to use. I would very much encourage you to give it a try. I would very much encourage you to put up as many of the best staves you can using those methods. We're all busy. People sometimes tell me "I wish I had time to do that". I'm a very busy man. I don't have time to do this. I make time to do this. Often early in the morning. On my noon hour. Late at night. It helps keep me sane. I find it relaxing and honestly addictive. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. Honestly I think in a year you'll be thinking this was really good advice. Good Luck, sure wish I had a couple of those logs.
Bjrogg
-
...for general knowledge and not directed to anyone specifically...
All of the Admins and Mods work hard to make this site run as smoothly as possible. We don't allow or tolerate anything else. If you could see our "warned and banned" list(only for Admins and Mods eyes) you would be surprised. We always give someone another chance and most heed the warning. The few that don't aren't here anymore.
The reason it is so tedious to log on initially is because of the numerous spammers that try to enter our domain. We spent many, many hours one year just keeping the spammers out. And we all do this for the love of wood bow building and Primitive Archer Magazine, our benefactor. We get to use this site for free thanks to Primitive Archer Magazine. If you didn't know that maybe you should send the editor a note of thanks.
And, the Admins and Mods aren't paid for their time. I consider it an honor and pleasure to have been selected to be an Admin and Mod.
-
DC, some parts can get pretty wet and stay that way most of the year (hardwood bottoms), most pretty damp, and some can get fairly dry.
BJRogg, I have been, and will continue to, air dry most of it. Some with bark still on, some with it off. Some of it just split tearing the bark and sapwood off.
-
when I first started,, I didnt know anything about curing wood,, well I cut some at my parents house, green,, and just layed it on the driveway,, well the bugs went crazy on it,, when I finally got to making a bow,, it looked awful,, I scraped down past the bugs and made one of my first good bows,, I still have it today,, it is sinew backed now,, that was nearly 30 years ago,, my point is,,
osage is amazing,, and will withstand almost any abuse and still make a bow,, properly cured wood is a real treasure to work with,,,
at the rate I make bows now, I have a life time supply and thats fun,, -C-
thanks to the editors and mods for this wonderful venue to share ideas,,
-
+1 on the tried and true method. It works every time. I also think that it helps them cure faster and therefore be ready to work sooner. I personally want to give myself the best opportunity to produce as quality a bow stave as the wood will allow. I'll save my experimentation for bow design etc... but every dog to his own tree. Danny