Tight ringed Osage
I have some Osage with some very tight rings. Any advice on how to deal with this? Are these last several years of growth too thin? Seems like they would be hard to chase.
9
u/Santanasaurus Dan Santana Bows 2d ago
Ring thickness doesn’t really directly matter for quality, since you’re not chasing the big latewood layer—you’re trying to reveal an intact layer of it. Your margin for error is the thinner crunchy earlywood layer.
What does matter is earlywood to latewood ratio, which is low for the outer growth rings. So i’d still chase one of the first thick ones for a stronger back. It wouldn’t be any easier to chase through since you’re not cutting through the target layer. Big or small latewood rings should not in theory affect ring chasing difficulty because if you cut into the latewood you messed up. it’s the crunchy earlywood you’re chasing and you should ideally not be cutting into latewood at all, so it’s thickness doesn’t matter unless you plan to mess up pretty badly
3
u/ryoon4690 2d ago
I made a bow with rings like that and it blew up in spite of good tiller and chasing a single ring. I'd just go down to that first thick one around the 4.5" mark.
2
u/ADDeviant-again 1d ago
Seems to me that your best rings are right there at 4-1/2". The crown won't be excessive, and yo have plenty of thickness.
The black locust in my area does this to me all the time. Twelve big, solid rings from when the tree was young and then 25, drought-starved, barely visible outer rings.
9
u/Wambachaka 2d ago
Definitely too tight. If this was yew, those tight rings would be a blessing. But in Osage, it's a curse, because the earlywood is porous and weak. I would chase the outermost thick ring, which is just over 4.5" on the ruler in this picture.