Ok, full disclosure.. They were fence posts! Not to many ,1/4 cord. 65 y.o. Farmer friend just pulled them & gave em to me. He remembers them being put in as an early teen. Above ground wood is dry as popcorn. MM starts reading around 8% then slowly drops to 5% then to zero! MM works fine on Mulberry that we picked up at the same time. Osage posts are on the bottom, ( bigger) Mulberry on top. 5.2 going to zero! Check out the shine on this 8 inch piece 362 & sons 029 did the work. Finally , I picked up some BONUS BTU'S. No MM reading yet!
Yep, some big staples... Think I got them all. Metal detector would have been handy. Seems like so much of my wood comes out of fence rows. Anybody use a detector on their firewood?
Can you imagine what a home would look sided sided in Osage? I wonder if it could be done.... I'd love countertops in it.
That is beautiful, deacon, especially the 4th and 5th pics (6th pic not so beautiful). I had been wondering since I joined this forum about the wood called osage orange. Now I've finally figured out it's bois d'arc, or as they call it in east Texas, bodark. I now remember my granddaddy calling it osage orange. it was never burned as firewood, too highly prized as fence posts and tool handles. Congrats on a nice find.
Another couple years and that stuff would be petrified......good think you got it when ya did I'd like to see some of that osage run through a planer and finished off smooth.....
It may not have been burned as firewood around you but it is so widely distributed in the US because the railroads encouraged it so they could locally source wood for their steam engine boiler fires. It is only native in the southern states but can be found all the way north through Illinois because of those plantings.
Thanks for the add't info, I remember my granddaddy taking about that. Locals didn't burn it back then because there's so much oak. With t-posts and synthetic tool handles becoming common, it gets burned a lot more nowdays.
Yeah, is not really here in Wisconsin. https://www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/herbarium/trees/macpom01.htm I'm sure there's an odd tree or 5 in other counties other than the 2 southern counties on the map on my link.
I'm gonna try to get a picture of two brush piles that will make you guys cry. A farmer I know just had a hedge row cleared, the row was 3/4 mile long and 10-15ft wide chuck full of Osage Orange the biggest being 30"+ at the base. Hundreds of cords of it all piled up in push piles. That will be a fire that will be seen for miles. I asked to cut posts out of it a few years ago... guess he forgot about that.
Uncle uses something like this while woodworking with reclaimed lumber like barn board. http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Detect...7895191&sr=8-2&keywords=lumber+metal+detector I think it would be a good investment if I was working with lots of fence row wood.
I have a mallet I turned back in mid 90's from a chunk of decades old hedge post.My fav Uncle cut it off one of the old posts he was getting rid of on his NW Missouri farm.He died in spring 1994. Its really dark now,has a few small dings/dents but still polished smooth & the varnish remains.Havent used it in years,its mainly a paperweight on the desk now & a reminder of him. There's a picture of it around here someplace..... In Feb 2014 I got an 18th century hand forged 1" corner chisel from a dealer/collector in NE Penna.I deal with a few times a year.Great shape for its age,just needed a new handle.Looked in one of the scrap boxes & found a small piece of Osage leftover from some other project. A few minutes with a drawknife,spokeshave,cabinet rasp & card scraper followed by a dunk in a can of amber varnish & it was finished.
Beautiful I several ways! That handle will probably outlast the chisel. Weight of the handle should give the tool a nice balance. Nice work & thanks for the story.
