Official Luthiers Forum!

Finally found some time to do a bit of resawing. Osage Orange isn't exactly the easiest wood to process, but I managed about 4 slices per inch. I see some yellow guitars in my future.

_________________
Aaron Craig

If you want to sell some of those, I'll be right over
Looks like some harp guitar sets could be had.

It will cut like butter if cut green.

Next time if you get the chance, get the wood before it has been dried, do your resawing when it's wet wood, allowing a little extra thickness for shrinkage, and then sticker the resawn wood to dry. This will also dramatically shorten your drying time.

Resawing dry Osage Orange (aka Hedge) is indeed a real chore.

Don't know how large of a bandsaw you have but a 1" x 1.3 tpi carbide tipped Lenox Woodmaster goes through it without hesitation. Now, Cocobolo, Camatillo & other oily rosewoods is a different matter.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Nice, I had a really nice board of Osage but my resaw set up just wasn't up to the task. I pretty much ruined it all I would love to make a guitar from it someday. Maybe I'll try to get some green lumber.

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

It actually didn't cut that hard. 20 inch Grizzly saw never flinched and the Woodmaster CT cut very well (same specs Kevin mentioned). I really like that blade. I agree that hedge cuts easier green. That's about the only way I would resaw it with a steel blade. Hedge is just a tough wood to work with generally. Finding a standing tree you think might have guitar quality wood in it (i.e., knot free, twist free, sufficient diameter, etc.) is difficult even where hedge rows run for long lengths. When you do find one, cutting requires a good saw with sharp chains (plural), a willingness to be repeatedly stabbed by thorns, and an acknowledgement that you will lose a lot of yield to knots you couldn't see, rot, internal stress fractures, or other unfortunate events (maybe I'm just a horrible lumberjack).

That said, the stuff rings like no other North American wood, and I've been wanting to build with it for a while now. I know the color isn't for everyone, but I rather like the look of these sets. They are as well quartered as is humanly possible for hedge, showing some pretty medullary rays, and there is some nice darker color mixed in here and there. I have some less interesting sets and am am thinking about just blacking out the back and sides (the stuff doesn't take stain particularly well, but opaque lacquer should work well). Classy look, Brazilian RW sound .

Dennis, these aren't long enough for a harp guitar. I think they are around 34 inches. Most are large enough enough for a dred if really careful in layout and jointing. They are currently all stickered and will need to dry for a while, but I might have a set I'd let go of in the future if you're really interested.

_________________
Aaron Craig

Osage is one of those hardwoods that tends to potato-chip if resawn green. For that reason alone, I prefer to air-dry the wood below 12% in board form before resawing.

_________________
John

Actually, 34" is just about exactly what I need. Not enough to do the sides in 3 pieces, but the long side can always be split into two with a corner block in the waist to harp arm transition area. And I assume that's 34" to the knot? Looks like I might be able to squeeze past it anyway. Or if you got any narrower boards for sides, that would be even better to avoid wasting the wide pieces like this. So yeah, let me know when it's dry and I'll bring some templates and see what will fit. Maybe $200-300 for a harp set, depending on what size I can get, whether I can get the long side in one piece, and avoid defects and such?

I'm impressed you found such a large osage around here. They're all over the place out at blue river woods (the foresty area just south of 435), but the only ones anywhere near large enough diameter for guitars have short and gnarly trunks.

I rather like the color of osage after it's oxidized, but this stuff looks pretty rich orange already Plus the stripes and ray fleck are nice. Might look even better with a dark amber shellac burst. I got some super concentrated "black" shellac from shellac.net a while back, too. I need to mix up a batch and run some tests, to see if it would be a good way to make lighter colored woods look more rosewood-ish, while still showing a little grain.