Osage Orange - worth clearing?

[OffGrid973]

 Hi Team,

Just a single man manual sawmill operation still but have gotten hooked into a few larger clearing jobs as my buddies business is taking off.  Is it worth trying to find trailer operators and a larger scale sawmill for this stuff in northern NJ or eastern PA?  Curious how many logs make a load that would even be acceptable by a mill for the different species coming up...thanks for any comments or advice as this piece is new for me verse the past 10 years of just milling.

Thanks,
-Chris

[treemuncher]

I'm not sure how that stuff cuts on a mill but I know it's tough with a chain saw. Bright yellow heart wood and it mulches like a large steel wire bush that is brittle and tough. It is not an easy wood to deal with.

The only good thing I know about Hedge Apple is that it has the highest BTU content of any wood. It puts out more heat than hickory or ash.

[Haleiwa]

The only uses that I know for it are archery bows and fence posts.  It makes a terrific post that will probably outlast two or three sets of wire.  If you have a market for fencing it is worth dealing with  

[Walnut Beast]

I'm not sure how that stuff cuts on a mill but I know it's tough with a chain saw. Bright yellow heart wood and it mulches like a large steel wire bush that is brittle and tough. It is not an easy wood to deal with.

The only good thing I know about Hedge Apple is that it has the highest BTU content of any wood. It puts out more heat than hickory or ash.

It grinds easy with the mulcher 😂

[wesdor]

Looks like I am the odd one out.  But I like to saw Osage orange on my manual LT-15. Have not found a good market for it, but it makes excellent bird houses and I turn items from it on my lathe. There is a secret to keeping the bright yellow longer.  
I have a few hundred 5/4 boards that are dry in the barn. 

[Bruno of NH]

Marketed right it should be a great seller when sawn.
Fence post , outside furniture 
With no chemical treatment. 

[doc henderson]

the wood is 32 million BTUs per cord so great forewood.  it makes good charcoal or lump charcoal as well.  so what is the secret to keeping it yellow?  @wesdor

[OffGrid973]

Got me as well, what's the secret?

[doc henderson]

We have several species that tend to darken such as ERC, Mulberry, and Hedge.  Mulberry can turn brown in a few hours, but tends to be yellow in the covered areas longer, but it all turns brown eventually.  so must and oxidation process, maybe promoted by uv ect.  @GeneWengert-WoodDoc .  even my uv protected indoor ERC benches eventually turn brown from the red/purple.  I have not done much finished wood projects with hedge (none).  some has gone to make award winning turkey calls, and they have stayed light in color.




 
ERC bench brown despite uv poly spar urethane.


<br

turkey call with hedge striker



 

lump charcoal from hedge

[wesdor]

Ok. I'll share the secret. 

First some background. I am a WoodTurner and also make pens. Four of my pens were at the 2019 Pig Roast. I also make small lidded boxes. The important part for you to focus on is "small". 

I'll use a pen as the example. Form it into whatever shape you desire. Then sand it to at least 600. For Osage you then take Hobby Lobby Canary Yellow PM19. Turn the lathe to its slowest speed and using the wedge tip, coat the pen. The next step is critical. Let the yellow finish dry for at least 2 days, then repeat. Depending on how the yellow looks I may do three coats. 
I typically use CA glue as a finish and the first coat should be thin CA which will pick up some of the yellow. I let the CA dry for 24 hours between applications.  I hand sand to 2,000 grit and then apply the next coat, but never apply less than 6 coats and sometimes 10. You can judge the finish after each sanding. 
Once I am satisfied with the finish, I sand to 12,000 and then use a paste wax to get a high gloss finish. 

Some pen turners complete a pen in 3 hours (start to finish), but I am convinced my slow process produces a much higher quality and durable finish. 

So far all Osage pens have retained a bright yellow color, thanks to Canary Yellow. 

Obviously this would be challenging for large objects. 

So the secret is now out to the Forestry Forum. 😍

[OffGrid973]

Pen pics? I am more of a bowl tuner and mallets but will give the HL Yellow a shot once these sticks hit the ground.

[old codger]

Bois d'Arc is a great hard wood for making handles for anything. I use it for making my hunting knife handles. It polishes easy

[wesdor]

Offgrid - sorry to take so long. I had to make some pens since all the others are gone.  These should stay yellow for a long time.

[kantuckid]

I have been making stuff from KS osage orange for years. My oldest project is from a stockpiled corner fence post that became our first table lamp. Other projects are stools, bowls and last Christmas I turned a large Appalachian style rocker w/hickory bark bottom from my stash. I have yet another rocker pattern cut from what little I have left. I've comment previously that my wood came from a sawmill near Lake Perry, KS sawed on a circle mill by a man certainly now gone. He sawed barn patterns, etc. and was a major source for livestock trailer floors sawed from hedge. I'm sure most of the old windbreaks across my native KS and the rest of the midwest area where it was planted for windbreaks are now dozed up and burned as farming turned to no-till practice. Burned is the key word there. 
Catalpa was also used more sparingly. I got some that was huge trees and all the rest got burned. 
The only logical uses I know of are trailer flooring and woodcrafts other than archery bows, as stated.
It's like cherry and will turn brown no matter what finish you use based on my older projects. 
FWIW, I once made a mandrel for my lathe and turned  cigar box full of osage orange wedding rings that I sold at craft shows years ago. My testing mode was turn & sand one then drop on concrete floor. In the box if it didn't bust. The wood when turned is opalescent like a man's Tiger Eye stone in a ring and refracts light at an angle. You see that in my turned chairs & bowls.
On a saw mill it saws fine but hardly an open market species.

[kantuckid]

Offgrid - sorry to take so long. I had to make some pens since all the others are gone.  These should stay yellow for a long time.

I mailed a bunch of pen scraps to a fellow MC rider in CA who has a pen business on the side. Got a beautiful osage orange pen from the many woods I sent him.
Honestly, I'm no fanboy of tropical woods due to the reality that there are so many choices here in the USA already!

[Brad_bb]

I have milled a lot of Osage.  Mostly as timberframe braces and curved side wood that was taken off. If you want a wood that will never rot....   Used a couple boards on my mailbox support.  You need to mill it while green.  Much easier that way.  Once dry it's very hard/tough.  You'd need a good byrd shelix planer head with enough HP to plane dry osage.  I don't have the planer I want yet.

[kantuckid]

My 15" Taiwan planer has a 3 cutter, straight blade, conventional head w/5hp 220v motor, and planes anything! if you adjust the cut for the species. It's a dandy! 
My latest run was 1x4 boards air dried then equalized on my planer for a new metal shop roof.
 Dimension lumber from box stores is insanely priced? Why so?
FWIW,  I saved a couple hundred bucks just on these 1x4's !!!

[711ac]

Then you could sell "gourmet " high performance firewood.  :D you did say northern NJ/PHILLY. 

[Walnut Beast]

Osage orange (hedge) posts are amazing how many years they can stay good in the ground without rotting off. The wood was highly coveted with the Indians for exceptional bows. I've got a hedge row with some pretty big ones. I'll have to get a few pictures sometime of them and fence posts that probably have been there 70+ years 

[teacherman]

I have been making stuff from KS osage orange for years. My oldest project is from a stockpiled corner fence post that became our first table lamp. Other projects are stools, bowls and last Christmas I turned a large Appalachian style rocker w/hickory bark bottom from my stash. I have yet another rocker pattern cut from what little I have left. I've comment previously that my wood came from a sawmill near Lake Perry, KS sawed on a circle mill by a man certainly now gone. He sawed barn patterns, etc. and was a major source for livestock trailer floors sawed from hedge. I'm sure most of the old windbreaks across my native KS and the rest of the midwest area where it was planted for windbreaks are now dozed up and burned as farming turned to no-till practice. Burned is the key word there.
Catalpa was also used more sparingly. I got some that was huge trees and all the rest got burned.
The only logical uses I know of are trailer flooring and woodcrafts other than archery bows, as stated.
It's like cherry and will turn brown no matter what finish you use based on my older projects.
FWIW, I once made a mandrel for my lathe and turned  cigar box full of osage orange wedding rings that I sold at craft shows years ago. My testing mode was turn & sand one then drop on concrete floor. In the box if it didn't bust. The wood when turned is opalescent like a man's Tiger Eye stone in a ring and refracts light at an angle. You see that in my turned chairs & bowls.
On a saw mill it saws fine but hardly an open market species.

I just spent the past 50 years living within a few miles of Perry, so it was good to read your post. I remember there was a mill just east of Perry, where they made walnut stocks for Thompson Center Contenders. Was that the same one? I got a scrap or two from them around 1980, which I used for cutting boards for decades. I sure do miss the hedge trees. Just moved to New Hampshire last month, and I wish my little forest had some hedge, mulberry, and walnut, rather than all the spindly pines creating dangerous snags. I always thought hedge would be good on a lathe. A friend of mine fashioned an electric cello from it, and played it, but it was not a piece of woodworking by any means. I did bring some thin shoots with me I plan to use for shovel handles and pegs when I restore my new old barn.

[kantuckid]

Some more KS nostalgia:
Another mill sawed the walnut as their specialty and was once owned by a gun mfg.. I bought wood from them which was actually the off cuts from gun stocks.  I remember it as being close to that old "out in the country" large furniture store on the main hwy. The man who sawed the hedge, etc., wasn't far from the lake itself. I was buying hedge after our 3 sons were born in 1975 & 1978 for a date to consider. That man sawed and farmed too. 
Walnut wise- When I was a foreman at Ohse Meat Products in the 1960's I bought a then newly released, new Winchester 101 over/under without a stock and stocked it with a piece of their wood. 
In the FWIW category-I had a kid who worked for me at Ohse's who lived out near Perry. He could shoot a "hard thrown walnut" out of the air with a .22 rifle! I was a competitive shooter for many years but m y targets stood still! 
A hard worker but what he could not do was get his butt to work. His bridge washed out twice (over the phone) while he still had a job... :D

[Walnut Beast]

 

 

 

 

 Old hedge posts 70+ yrs hedge row and pretty big one

[Walnut Beast]

I have milled a lot of Osage.  Mostly as timberframe braces and curved side wood that was taken off. If you want a wood that will never rot....   Used a couple boards on my mailbox support.  You need to mill it while green.  Much easier that way.  Once dry it's very hard/tough.  You'd need a good byrd shelix planer head with enough HP to plane dry osage.  I don't have the planer I want yet.

Even with a razor sharp chain you can tell when you are in some old hard as rock hedge! Had to cut this hedge that some black gold was hung up on and it was hard. It crossed my mind to get it out 😂

[Walnut Beast]

 

 That was the big problem!! That's why when I was winching the poor little walnut tree I had the snatch block attached to about went over and the 15k plus Beast with the bucket anchored in the ground was getting pulled backwards till I figured out what the heck the problem was with being held up on a good old Osage 

[Nebraska]

You know that hedge dyed as  described above, cut into inch  ish boards and and alternated with  Black Walnut would make a cool butcher butcher block counter/bar or chess boards etc 🤔...

[aigheadish]

You guys have inspired me to go harvest some Osage! I've got at least one tree but maybe 2 or 3, with the 2nd and 3rd kind of laying down back at the opening of the back field. Before I knew what it was I went out to hit some of the stuff that looked dead with the backhoe. There was maybe 10 feet of it that stretched out, maybe 6 inches in diameter, without bark, and I figured I'd just knock it off. Well, I put my bucket up on it and while some of it split it just turned to fibers and stayed connected. A few years later and there it still stands. The stuff I've got out there is probably 18+" in diameter near the base. I never thought to try turning it. 

[Walnut Beast]

Looking forward to seeing some Osage on the mill guys 👍

[doc henderson]

I am milling some Saturday for @Cardiodoc If anyone wants some, come to Ks.  many are paying to have it dozed out and giving it away.

[Walnut Beast]

Looking forward to some pics Doc 👍

[kantuckid]

The only real question toward its value is if it's suitable to saw and if you know how to make stuff with it? Few trees yield useable wood. Especially the ones that are wolf trees out in the open not corralled in a hedgerow "as they used to grow" in KS. No till farming began the move toward hedgerow removals many years back. People feel the need to "groom every bit of land these days is another factor, as hedge isn't a typical forest tree species.  

[Walnut Beast]

You know that hedge dyed as  described above, cut into inch  ish boards and and alternated with  Black Walnut would make a cool butcher butcher block counter/bar or chess boards etc 🤔...

When it comes to cutting boards Osage is one of the best 

[Walnut Beast]

Osage down. Kinda 😂. Need to winch the rest to the ground. Was going to cut the lower part later it's pretty massive. This is what I was dealt 

 

 

[thecfarm]

Firewood?? 

[doc henderson]

it will be good for small projects.  turns nice on a lathe.  rings, turkey and deer calls.  If you build a chair out of it, no one could lift it.  

[Walnut Beast]

Firewood??

Not a chance. That's what epoxy is for 😂

[Walnut Beast]

it will be good for small projects.  turns nice on a lathe.  rings, turkey and deer calls.  If you build a chair out of it, no one could lift it.  

The stuff is heavy! A friend said save plenty for fence posts