I promised myself I'd wait till I got this stave bending before sharing some pics, but it may take a few more hard earned days. I've worked with some tough hard to split wood before but this one here gets the black hat. I took my hatchet to the grinder twice thinking maybe my 1st time I'd not made it sharp enough, even though I knew that wasn't true. Then my knives started giving me the same feedback. So now I'm on to rasping out the general profile. Bit by bit.
Here is some pics of the original harvest about 6 months back. I'll have more pics latter today showing it's progression on the workbench. Then stave came with a nature-given set-back handle so I have all sorts of crazy ideas for what to make of it. It's 72" at the moment. Have a good morning all.