thoughts of burying osage in the dirt....???

[nsherve]

I recently posted about putting some osage in my pond. Now I have a question about burying some. A lot of the subsoil on my land is red clay, with some sandy clay in areas. Do any of you have thoughts on this? Would it keep the worms out, you think? Of, even kill them if there are some already there? Would there be any negative effects on the wood? Positive effects?

[sleek]

Wouldnt hurt a thing. Leave it there for years, the sap will rot and be asy to remove. Consider how valied old fence post are. No downside except waiting forever to use them.

[nsherve]

I may have enough time. I sunk 6 or 7 staves in the pond, about 30 or so in the barn that I sprayed diesel on (heard that'll keep the worms out...), and probably another 20-30 after I finish splitting. I need to split the ones in the barn some more, too.  So, it'll be some time before I get to the ones in the water and ones that I may bury. Mostly worried about the worms, but I want to see if there's any difference in they way they turn out too.

[osage outlaw]

To me it seems like burying and digging up staves sounds like more work than just removing the bark and sapwood with a draw knife. 

[S.C. hunter]

Hey,
I have to agree with Osage Outlaw. You remove the sapwood, then spray it with some insecticide. Then you don't have to worry about dirt, oils, etc.
  Steve

[bjrogg]

To me it seems like burying and digging up staves sounds like more work than just removing the bark and sapwood with a draw knife.

I'd have to think the same Clint. It's really not that difficult to remove sapwood, split Staves and seal ends and back. You'd still have to do it, plus Digg hole bury and Digg up again. It would probably still make a bow, but I doubt very much it'd be a better bow. It would be awful hard to monitor them.
Bjrogg

[Badger]

I can't imagine anything beneficial from burying wood. Even though osage is pretty tough you are still exposing it to bacteria.

[High-Desert]

It may be more work, and have no benefit, but I say go for it, I’m all about experimentation. If you have no shortage of Osage, do it. The least that will happen is you will learn something.
I’ve done things that took twice as long and cost me twice as much as buying something, but what’s the fun in that!

[DC]

If you bury it in the top six inches or so there is lots of microbes, bugs etc. to degrade the wood. If you went down 2 or more feet it would probably just sit there staying wet. Water or dirt when you pull it out after "x" number of years your drying time starts then. All you are doing is postponing it. Because we are talking Osage here rot happens very slow, at least in the heartwood, but it does happen. If all the ancients had stored their bows in dry spots we would still have them so it seems to me that even though it's slow, if the wood is wet, it's degrading.
I think the only reason to do this is bug problem prevention and stripping the bark solves that.
So strip the bark, seal the backs, put it in a dryish place and send me a couple of staves for giving you such good advice

[bradsmith2010]

I had a a friend that said an old timer made bows like that,, buried in the dirt to cure,,thats all I know,,it might reduce checking by slowing the drying process,,maybe you could strip the bark,, and skip coating,, if you bury it,,,, when I had staves in Texas,, the bugs were pretty bad,, so if it helped that,, I can see doing it,,
in a time without a steel draw knife or store bought varthane to coat the back,,,, these techniquues probably were of great value,, now they are interesting but I doubt any advantage over more modern techniques to cure the wood,,but fun to try,, I always enjoy seeing how an ancient man would have to resolve issues like this,, 

[nsherve]

I don't know how bad the bugs are here in west AL. This is the first one I've cut down and gotten fresh. The first that I acquired from a cousin was tore up with wormholes, but he had left it out in his yard for over a year.
As far as I've heard and seen, osage doesn't rot easily. I've seen them coming from my wife's pawpaw's old fence lines that his dad had put in around ww2 time frame with really hard non-rotted wood. They were way too twisted and knotted up for me, though...
Maybe I'll put it in a really soggy bottom. I'd assume the sapwood'll rot off pretty quick down there.   

[DC]

Bury it shallow if you're trying to rot the sapwood. You've probably noticed how fence post rot more at ground level.

[Pat B]

Like was said above it would be easier to remove the bark and sapwood while it is still green. I don't think burying it would be a big help and could cause problems. You will still have to dry the wood once you get it back out of the ground, adding more time to the process.

[nsherve]

Pat B, do you have any thoughts on what kind of problems it could cause? Yea, I understand that it needs to dry after pulling it out. I'm taking the bark and sapwood off a couple right now.

I think it'll season a bit different in the dirt, clay especially because of the way it holds moisture and can get really dry in parts of the year. I plan to find out how it is after a year. Of course, the moisture can be different year to year...

[Eric Krewson]

I understand your quest for new methods and ideas on dealing with wood. When I started out making bows 20 years ago I had a host of ideas I thought would be better than the standard way of doing things. Try as I might, my "new" methods just didn't work out and I reverted to the tried and true methods of the bow making masters of the time.

My only oddball idea that worked really well was my tillering gizmo.

Get out your drawknife, remove the bark and sapwood from your staves, paint the ends and backs with 4 coats of shellac and put them out of the weather to dry. It is unlikely that putting the wood in a pond or burying it in the ground is going to accomplish anything except a bunch of extra work for you.

 I have put up around 300 staves using the method I mentioned. I have also ruined at least 30 trying oddball methods of quick drying green osage before I went back to the method stated in Dean Torges book "Hunting the Osage Bow", at which point I never lost another stave.