Uses for Osage Orange

[Chuck Jones]

A friend brought over six nice 8' x 12"-16" osage orange/bodark/hedge logs today for me to saw. He thought they were something else. (I won't embarrass him by telling what.) I have more Osage Orange than I'll ever turn in my lifetime or use for singletrees, fence posts or Indian bows.

My question is: What is Osage Orange good for besides turning? Anyone ever use it for flat stock projects?

He's thinking of having me saw it into 1 by's and 2 by's and building patio tables and Adirondack chairs. Will it work?

[Brian Effinger]

Nah, its no good for any of that. Send it to me & I'll dispose of it properly on my lathe. In short time it will be nothing but shavings. :D

Actually, I think I have seen it as boards, so it may work.

[Art Jordan]

Forget it....terrible wood, ugly, too soft, cracks easily, hard to stain.
Send it to me and I will make duck calls from it.

See attached photo:

art jordan

[Richard M. Wolfe]

A friend made a bar top from it not long ago. I don't see why it wouldn't work for any projects you wanted, just keeping in mind that the yellow color will be replaced with brown and that anything will be much heavier.

Once again the weight is a consideration, but there have been multitudes of threads here dealing with suitable wood for outdoor furniture. I've read a number of cases of bois d'arc fence posts being in the ground many many years with no deterioration. And as hard and close-grained as the stuff is splinters shouldn't be an issue. I've mentioned before that a finish carpenter told me of an entry door he made of it and said it was one of the prettiest pieces he had done. I'll confess I've not used it for any projects; I'm going to have to make something from it so I'll have some first hand knowledge. :o

[Michael Faurot]

For flat work, I like to use it as inlay for accents.

Mostly i've turned it.

Here's a little story that might give you some additional ideas on how to put that Bois d'Arc to use. Awhile back my wife comes to me with this cake server that has a broken handle and asks me if I can fix it. The handle was some type of porcelain, but it had shattered into too many pieces to even contemplate gluing the bits back to together. I tell her, "I could turn a wooden handle for it, but you'd have to hand wash it." She thinks on that a moment and says, "No thanks, that'd be too much trouble. I'll just throw it away." At which point she tosses the thing in the trash and I go back out to the shop. As I'm messing around, I come across this piece of Bois d'Arc that would be just perfect as a handle for that cake server. I'm thinking, if Bois d'Arc is used for fence posts that last for years, maybe it'll withstand being put through the dish washer. So I fished that broken cake server out of the trash and then turned a handle for it.

What you see in the picture is the caker server with a Bois d'Arc handle that has been through the dish washer at least a dozen or so times now. When I first put the handle on the cake server, it had some wax on it, but that's long gone now. What's amazing to me is how the surface on the handle is as smooth now, as it was when it first came off of the lathe.

[Don Morris]

Traditional archers are those who use long bows and recurve bows. Osage orange has been used by traditional archers for centuries. The plains indians used to make their bows from it. My mother was taught to make one from from a Chief of the Winnebago tribe and I had it for many years before foolishly letting it go. If you had a piece long enough for a bow, and of good quality, a bowyer (one who makes bows) would pay well for it.

[Larry Edgerton]

I use it for door pulls. Outside it greys but does not rot, and inside it takes on a nice patina as it ages and sucks up hand oil. I buff it with a clean wheel and let it go natural. Cheaper than Cocobolo and just as durable.

[Mike Cutler]

Chuck

Orange Osage can most certainly be milled into flat lumber. It's hard, dense and stable. Qsawn it can exhibit a lot of chatoyance, especially the Bois d' Arc.
In some areas of the country it's a "trash wood", in others, like New England, it fetches a pretty penny. It has value.
It has a funny(different) color than most people are used too, and that's why you don't see more of it as tables, dressers and such.

Qsaw some of it, and I think you'll see it's a beautiful wood. I have quite a bit of it in the shop that is going to get turned into a standing tool chest someday, but I could always use some more.;)

[Terry Beadle]

I've seen Osage used for zero clearance inserts on table saws. Kelly Mehyr of Kentucky has one in his table saw video. Looked good.

I've also heard Osage being used to make carver mallets but I'm not sure how well they hold up.

[Chuck Jones]

Thanks for all the good advice folks. I'm always pleased at how helpful woodworker/woodturners are. Between this and another forum I now count 14 serious suggestions. That's not counting those who offer to take the logs and dispose of them for us. :) All this good advice leads us to the conclusion we should saw the logs into 1" and 2" thickness, and maybe a couple cants thicker than that.

[Dick Strauss]

Some folks use OO for making block planes IIRC

[George Sanders]

I have used Osage Orange for slot runners on jigs. They are hard, straight, and true. Works great.

[Loren Blount]

I have used osage orange to make a blanket chest and a shaker end table. The end table I finished with oil and it quickly turned very dark brown. The chest I used a UV blocking film finish ( hydracote ) I believe, and it has stayed its original yellow. I have also had a compass plane and a spokeshave make out of it with good success. I'll try to get some pics up later today.

Loren

[Jim Andrew]

I know OO saws OK, but do you dry it like other lumber before using it? When I have to drive staples in hedge posts, the old ones get so hard you can hardly drive staples into it without the wood cracking. So do you let it dry below 10% before planing it?

[Caleb Larru]

You could make a wooden car out of it like that Joe Harmon guy.

[Bill Clark De]

It's strange but perhaps geography is the answer -Here on the least coast that wood is considered good only for fences etc. but I have used it for turnings- to really appreciate its beauty take a branch -small log and cut with your chop saw and look at the grain . However the most interesting use i know of is over here they construct Tall ships using it exclusively .In Chestertown Md. they finished a really nice tall ship several years ago ..I also know of an Amish cluster who uss it for recurve bows...

[Chuck Jones]

Well, we sawed those logs last night and my friend left here with more lumber than he should have had in the back of an old pickup truck. We sawed it 5/4, and 6/4 plus a couple 4 x 4's. I'd say about half of it was excellent quality, beautiful boards. The rest was okay, but had several checks, bug tunnels, some stress, etc. Definitely will be worthwhile. I think at least one of the trees was dead when they cut it, but that did not seem to matter. All of it felt quite dry, but we did not use the moisture meter. He is going to dry it in his solar kiln and make outdoor furniture out of most of it.

By the way, after several (including me) saying OO will dull tools, we started with a used band and sawed all six logs without changing it. Never showed any sign of getting dull. Go figure.

I know I should have taken some pictures, but I did not remember to take my camera to the shop. Also, we were working during a tremendous thunderstorm and flash flood. At one point the rain was blowing into the shed so much we had to stop for a while.

Again, I really appreciate all the good advice we've gotten here. Salvaging wood is always fun to me; even more so when I get a chance to work with something a little out of the ordinary (at least for around here).