curly osage?

[Jeff Bartley]

Has anyone here ever seen curly osage-orange??? I have a bit of an obsession with osage but I've never seen it curl.

[Tom Fischer]

Always thought the curl was from crushing weight, mean the stick has to be pretty wide, a lot of weight, foliage, etc
Common in soft maples, get pretty big, pretty fast, big canopy, but the wood fibers are not all that strong.
Never seen a large osage, but it's now a common tree around here.
Certainly curly osage would look pretty cool.

[Keith Christopher]

Always thought the curl was from crushing weight, mean the stick has to be pretty wide, a lot of weight, foliage, etc
Common in soft maples, get pretty big, pretty fast, big canopy, but the wood fibers are not all that strong.
Never seen a large osage, but it's now a common tree around here.
Certainly curly osage would look pretty cool.

Tom,

No one knows definitively what causes the figure in wood just alot of speculation, genetic defect, soil, disease....So I would assume curly osage is possible.

[Jim Becker]

There are a lot of particularly "knarly" Osage Orange trees out there in my observation, so logically, there might be some interesting figure in them! The challenge will be to source...not typical for commercial sellers to carry OO lumber. Any that I've every had was cut locally or gathered along the road from falls, and even then, it's been pretty much turning stock. (My bench mallet is turned from it :))

[Jeff Bartley]

Thanks for the replies fellas! My local source for osage has dried up so I'm sorta on the hunt for more.....logically I might as well try and find some curly osage! Jim--one of the timber framers I worked with a few years ago spoke of osage mallets being the best.....it's been my plan to turn one for years but I haven't found stock of sufficient size yet.
Happy New Year!

[Jim Andrew]

Where I am in Kansas, Osage Orange is very common. Even so, I don't make a practice of using it. Used my mill to cut beams for a buddy last winter, he is rebuilding an old cabin, and wanted some 6 x 10" beams for a porch, he found some really big pieces and we sawed them, but it was an ordeal. And none of the pieces were perfect. The logs were dry in places and had rotten spots in them, so he just had to deal with some not perfect wood. We had to stop and readjust the mill in the middle of cutting, the stuff is almost like sawing concrete.

[Richard Coers]

Hardwood Connection in Sycamore, IL shows 12/4 osage on the price list.
http://www.thehardwoodconnection.com/images/FALL_Lumber_List_2012__11-7-12.pdf

[Keith Christopher]

cookwoods shows some figured OO. Check out their site.

[Jeff Bartley]

Someone (a Mike I think) sent me a message earlier about osage in Kansas......now I can't find the message.....can you message me again?? Thanks!

[Jeff Bartley]

Boy, I just looked through some of the osage at cookwoods......no shortage there! I'm not sure what a 'knife scale' is but based on the size I'm guessing they make up the two sides of a knife handle....in any case some of the curly 'knife scale' stock is beautiful....too bad the pieces are so small!

[Cody Colston]

I've seen (had) OO (Bodark) with small areas of curly figure. I'e also seen some very large Bodark trees...>24" trunks but not all that tall as the canopy develops early on them. I expect that if more Bodark was sawn commercially, then there would be a lot more figured lumber from it. The percentage of figured Maple trees is fairly low but there is a lot of it processed so the figure wood is available.

[Steve Rost]

I too like OO and will get it when I can. A sawyer I knew said inclusions, internal rotting and internal stresses made it a royal pain. I have used it for the soles of hand planes and the wavy grain is prone to tear out.