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Osage Oorange Hollow Form

R

Roger Chandler

Joined
Nov 26, 2009
Messages
787
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720
Location
Rockingham, Virginia
This is a hollow form I turned this past week. It is 11 inches high and 6 inches wide +/- a little. I had a foot/pedestal on it, but this was turned from a log blank that had an elbow shape, and the pith made it impossible to turn it out, and I got a large crack after the DNA soak, so I ended up parting off the foot/pedestal, which left the form a little wide at the foot.

This is my first form of this type, but I have hollowed vases, etc. and I used Ellsworth hand held tools to hollow it. The finial is ebonized maple........I was going for simple lines, without much embellishment on it.

Thanks for looking............
 

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osage

Roger,
The color in osage orange is so bright when you turn it . It's too bad is dulls so much when it ages. It is a tough bird to work on but it sure looks nice finished. What finish did you use? I put poly on mine and it still glows after years. I also turned mine after 7 months of rough out drying so mine was really hard. Did you ebonize the maple the steel wool method or ink? Gary
 
The color change is why I keep anything I turn from Osage Orange for at least a year before I sell it. I don't want the customers to be disappointed. I love the wood. I don't find it hard to turn you just can't take big cuts. I love the way it finishes.
 
Gary Chapman said:
Roger,
The color in osage orange is so bright when you turn it . It's too bad is dulls so much when it ages. It is a tough bird to work on but it sure looks nice finished. What finish did you use? I put poly on mine and it still glows after years. I also turned mine after 7 months of rough out drying so mine was really hard. Did you ebonize the maple the steel wool method or ink? Gary
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Gary,

I used wipe-on-poly, and used black dye to ebonize the finial. this was my first ever piece of osage orange, so I did not really know what to expect, only that I had heard that it was a very hard wood.

John was correct..........light cuts are the order of the day with bois 'd-arc!
 
john lucas said:
The color change is why I keep anything I turn from Osage Orange for at least a year before I sell it. I don't want the customers to be disappointed. I love the wood. I don't find it hard to turn you just can't take big cuts. I love the way it finishes.
Click to expand...

Osage orange turns a beautiful grayish white when bleached, highlighting the grain pattern, but it requires at least ten to fifteen applications of the two-part bleach. Worth the effort, though.

I also like the warm golden-brown of Osage after it has aged. Nice wood to turn but challenging to find in large chunks that don't have cracks.

Lovely hollow form, Roger!


Betty Scarpino, editor, AW
 
Really nice HF Roger. I do like how it turns a mellow brown when aged. I do like John does and I won't sell OO for at least a year. Had a customer complain because it didn't stay yellow.
 
Nice work, Roger. Osage orange likes to move around and can crack as it dries.

It looks like you have a bit of the pith in images #3 and #4 -- if so, it might be best to avoid having the pith in the turning. Some turners will orient the wood so that the pith passes through the center of the bottom (and turn the bottom thin), but that is no guarantee that it will not crack anyway.
 
Bill Boehme said:
Nice work, Roger. Osage orange likes to move around and can crack as it dries.

It looks like you have a bit of the pith in images #3 and #4 -- if so, it might be best to avoid having the pith in the turning. Some turners will orient the wood so that the pith passes through the center of the bottom (and turn the bottom thin), but that is no guarantee that it will not crack anyway.
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Hi Bill!

Thanks for taking a moment to look! This log was elbow shaped, and turning the pith out completely was impossible to do with this form. Believe me, I would have if I could have.

You are correct about the cracking.........this one did in several places, even after the DNA soak, but the worst was on the foot/pedestal that I had to simply part off in order to make this look good, and save the piece.
 
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Really nice piece. If I were to embelish this it would be to pick up the grain and make the owl's half closed eyes pop out...I have a 9/4 x 11" x 7' piece of osage orange it's been standing in the shed for a couple of years. Wasn't really sure what to do with it, but after seeing your piece and I want to try bleaching and platers would be a good project to practice on. Thanks
 
DOCworks said:
Really nice piece. If I were to embelish this it would be to pick up the grain and make the owl's half closed eyes pop.
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Thanks Doc! Making the grain stand out on that would have been a neat thing to do.......I wish I had thought of that before I finished it. I guess I will have to keep my eyes open for an opportunity like that if it ever comes up again on a piece.

Great suggestion! 🙂
 
Osage orange

Nice piece Roger.

Last summer I purchased a few 5" squares of Argentina osage orange from Woodcraft Suppply. Those pieces are part of a multi-piece stack I call a cairn. The Argentine stuff has changed to a reddish brown and the domestic stuff is still yellow , although definitely aged, after six months. The cairn is unfinished and I may wait a year or so for the final colors to mature before applying a finish. Another option is to bleach the cairn as explained in this thread by Ms. Scarpino.
 
That's interesting. I've turned probably a dozen or more forms from Osage and not had any cracking problems. Maybe it's where the lens comes from.
 
john lucas said:
That's interesting. I've turned probably a dozen or more forms from Osage and not had any cracking problems. Maybe it's where the lens comes from.
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John,

I don't follow you on the comment "maybe it's where the lens comes from." Care to elaborate? Are you speaking of the camera lens, and if so, an explanation would be helpful?
 
roger Sorry. A student asked a question about photography while I was typing. I meant to say which part of the country the tree comes from. My brain doesn't multi task like it used to.
 
john lucas said:
roger Sorry. A student asked a question about photography while I was typing. I meant to say which part of the country the tree comes from. My brain doesn't multi task like it used to.
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Thank you John...........I think you are correct about the different characteristics of the same species, that is in different locales. I know that almost without exception every piece of osage orange that I have seen here in the Shenandoah Valley has been prone to cracking. Even though your location is listed as Tennessee, [only a couple hundred miles or so, the ones here do seem to crack.

I did a DNA soak on this piece, but it cracked on me in several areas......around the foot especially [some of the pith there, and to be expected] and also on the shoulder, smaller cracks that I stabilized with some thin CA glue, which helped a lot.
 
john lucas said:
roger Sorry. A student asked a question about photography while I was typing. I meant to say which part of the country the tree comes from. My brain doesn't multi task like it used to.
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John-gave you (the photographer) credit for a "fun" comment.The proper lens would pick up the crack and a crappy lens might hide it!!!! 🙂Gretch
 
Gretch Flo said:
John-gave you (the photographer) credit for a "fun" comment.The proper lens would pick up the crack and a crappy lens might hide it!!!! 🙂Gretch
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Gretch,

I don't claim to know much about photography, I have a son who is quite a photographer, and my wife is a pretty good shutterbug in her own right.....me I just do the best I can.

That being said, I used a Pentax digital SLR with Pentax lens that cost well over $100 this one a 35mm-80mm. I think the angle of the shot prevented a lot of the detail where the small cracks around the shoulder are, however, they might be seen in the photo of the finial off the form.
 
Roger, your finial needs to be taller and more delicate to add to this work. Your shoulder heading down is very flowing. Create a jig or somesuch on your next one to turn the bottom to give an undercurve to the base. This sharp base grows from the table. An undercurve will give the impression of lift. Like the piece sits on the surface and commands the eye to think just that.
 
Roger Chandler said:
.... with Pentax lens that cost well over $100 this one a 35mm-80mm....
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I'll bet it was well over $100. When I decided to retire my film cameras and go digital a few years ago, I also had to get new lenses unless I wanted to do manual exposure and focusing. Some of the lenses that I had from 40 years ago were in the $100+ range. It took me a while to get over the sticker shock of modern lenses with built-in focusing and aperture motors as well as image stabilization. I settled for some lenses in the $1K to $2K range, but there are some super-telephoto lenses that sell for well above $5K.
 
KellyDunn said:
Roger, your finial needs to be taller and more delicate to add to this work. Your shoulder heading down is very flowing. Create a jig or somesuch on your next one to turn the bottom to give an undercurve to the base. This sharp base grows from the table. An undercurve will give the impression of lift. Like the piece sits on the surface and commands the eye to think just that.
Click to expand...


Thanks Kelly!
 
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