Osage Orange Wood

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Mar 9, 2005
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Has anyone ever made any knife grips from Osage Orange wood? I saw a custom bow maker use it once.

how does the wood perform and work in your opinion?
 
I've used it for several knife handles. Its very stable and tuff. Try to find some that has some nice figure.
 

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Osage Orange makes an excellent handle. It absorbs shock well. It gradually turns brown. However, if stabilized it stays yellow/orange longer.

For my own camp knives I'd choose desert ironwood, osage orange or lignum vitae.
 
Farmers here use it for fenceposts-------I know where I can get tons of it !
Oh, and the fruits that come off of it in the fall that look like brains !?? :eek: ...they keep spiders away if you have problems with them
 
hmm...thanks all. I like the color of the wood. I never knew that about the fruit...that's right up there with cat-tail muffins. :)
 
Yep, you put those hedge balls in your basement, they are supposed to kill and also keep bugs from being in your basement. The trees are real common here. I have used a lot of it (Osage) for knife handles and really like it.
 
Man, I just cut down two of these trees that had been knocked partially down by last winter's ice storm. If anybody wants some rough-cut, chain sawed blocks just let me know and I can send some out for postage cost. I haven't cut any slabs yet so if anyone can advise on how to go about this I'd appreciate it. I have several "firewood" sized logs about 10-12" diameter and they're yours for some advise and postage.
 
To dry the wood for handle material do this.Take a log section about 12 to 15 inches long.Chain saw it into a rough rectangle block.Paint the ends with old house paint to slow the checking.Put it in a reasonably dry place for two or three years until the moisture content equalizes.Cut off the last inch of each end,Band saw the block into 2.5 inch slabs,repaint the ends and let dry in a dry place for another six months.Trim off the ends,run it over the jointer or through the planer if you want prettier blocks,and saw it into 2 inch sticks.The wood should be dry enough to use now.I let them sit for a month or two after cutting them into handle blocks,just to let them equalize stresses.It stabilizes well (but must be very dry before stabilizing).
 
I have used mostly gnarly limbs. I cut them about 12 inches long and toss them in a shop drawer for a few years. So far, they have dried without checking. I left the bark on, too. Some of the larger limbs I cut into large slabs and just tossed them into the drawer, too. The ugly twisted and curved limbs make great looking handles when finished. The knots don't loosen and really add dark character to the wood. I try to have at least one knot per knife handle.
 
This is great stuff but hard to work. It eats saw blades for a bedtime snack. Around here they use it for fence posts, and some of those fences have been in the ground for 150 years (they say). I have a piece of a trunk of the stuff that I've never been courageous enough to try to cut up, but some day I'm gonna. I think it's beautiful wood and finishes very nice.
 
I use hedge for the making of my short reed goose calls and is some pretty nice stuff but does have a tendency to crack. If you feel real ambitious and can find a farmer who is wanting to tear out and old fence row, could possibly find some hedge posts that have turned geen from being buried in the ground. This "green hedge" brings a high premium to call makers and is some beautiful stuff. Have also heard of some making thier own by placing squares in buckets of mud and nails and sinking in a pond for couple of years.
 
I made some kitchen knives with some bug eaten hedge fence post that had been in the ground for a 100 years at a nearby farm here. It made beautiful handles.
 
Serra_Avatar said:
Has anyone ever made any knife grips from Osage Orange wood? I saw a custom bow maker use it once.

how does the wood perform and work in your opinion?
Click to expand...
I once rehandled a clam knife for a friend with osage orange wood. It looked good but it was a very plain wood. It sanded well. I finished it with wax.
 
I haven't cut any osage for knife handles yet, but I have made several bows using this wood. The trick to drying osage is controlling the moisture loss once the wood is cut. Here are some rule of thumb suggestions to keep the wood from craking/splitting/checking once you cut it:

1) If you cut a piece of wood off a living/green tree, seal the ends as quickly as possible (wood glue or paint will work just fine) because water will escape from the open/exposed grains faster than it will through the bark and cause the wood on the ends to check or crack as they dry faster than the rest of the log.
2) If you cut the wood green and remove the bark be sure and remove the sap wood (that the white stuff) since the sap wood loses moisture faster than the heart wood. So even if you seal the ends and remove the bark without removing the sap wood you will still get checking/cracking.
3) If you cut the wood green, seal the ends and take if back to the shop you can do several things to speed up the drying. You can split the wood and expose a large area of wood grain to drying/moisture release. If you leave the bark on one side after you split it you may see some warping due to the moisture escaping faster along the split side, this depends on how thick the piece is you split out. You can take the split piece and cut it into blanks say 2X2X6 inches (all heart wood, no bark or sapwood) and these should dry relatively quickly with out too much movement or warping. You could even put these pieces in front of a fan or in some controlled heated area (100 - 120F) and they would dry even quicker. Once the 2X2 piece sits a week or so, it can probably be cut into thinner strips without warping. If done in this fashion, the wood should be dry and stable within a month.

Basically the thinner the wood the sooner it will dry. By dry I mean come to equilibrium with the it's surroundings. Therefore wood in dried in this fashion along the coast would have a higher moisture content then the same wood dried in this fashion in the dessert.

One last thing, if you cut the wood and leave it outside to dry with the bark on there is a wasp that likes to lay it's eggs/larvae in the bark of the tree. This larvae then likes to eat the sapwood. Unfortunatly often times it eats down into the heartwood a ways before it turns and goes back into the sapwood. This may not be a problem for knife handle size wood, but it sure can ruin a bow maker’s day. Hopefully this helps.
 
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