Osage Orange?

Steveperrywriter · Jun 14, 2013

Anybody ever build or think about using Osage orange for an ukulele back and sides? I have a classical guitar made by Al Carruth that has a terrific tone, and he says OA is probably between Braz and Indian Rosewood as to its tonal qualities. It is apparently hard to work with, and it's pumpkin-colored when fresh, but eventually darkens to a nice brown.

Pondoro · Jun 14, 2013

It is very hard and tough. I attempted to make a bow from a 6" log - splitting the green log into 4 staves was a lot of work. When it cured the staves were unacceptable due to curvature of the grain, I did not repeat the process. I cross cut the worthless staved into firewood and they were very hard to saw.

dave g · Jun 14, 2013

I've made a few banjo uke necks with it - works fine for that, though it's on the heavy side... I've got a little of it rough cut for sides & backs but haven't built anything with it yet.

Red Cliff · Jun 14, 2013

I can't really comment on its sound qualities as I am new to this game. However I have made several bows out of it and footed arrrow shafts also.

Warps a lot when drying, can crack a fair bit too. Often lots of hidden pins and knots. Planing it can be difficult. Does look great though, goes a lovely chocolate brown as long as it is still exposed to the air - if it was completely sealed I guess it may hold on to the orange colour longer.

Very dense wood, enormously strong in compression and tension tests.

Sorry - that probably doesn't answer the question.

Kevin Waldron · Jun 14, 2013

We've used Osage Orange for several instruments...... don't have finished ukulele photo...... but here is one that was under construction....... make sure that the grain is 1/4'd or at least straight.

Blessings,

Kevin

Bill Mc · Jun 14, 2013

The tree produces a fruit that looks like a human brain. A common name for the tree is "iron wood."

rudy · Jun 14, 2013

Bill Mc said:
The tree produces a fruit that looks like a human brain. A common name for the tree is "iron wood."

A bit round to double for a human brain...

The spherical fruit has a convoluted surface (much like the human brain

) and is commonly known as "hedge apples" (as a result of the common term for the tree being Osage Orange or Hedge. It was planted intentionally as windbreaks long ago, and the larger it grows the more unstable the processed wood becomes. I've used smaller pieces of it, but I'd never trust it for anything resembling a instrument side, top, or back.

The only US source for "ironwood" that I know of is American Hornbeam. I've never heard of common hedge being referred to as ironwood, although it IS indeed difficult to work.

DewGuitars · Jun 14, 2013

Steveperrywriter said:
Anybody ever build or think about using Osage orange for an ukulele back and sides? I have a classical guitar made by Al Carruth that has a terrific tone, and he says OA is probably between Braz and Indian Rosewood as to its tonal qualities. It is apparently hard to work with, and it's pumpkin-colored when fresh, but eventually darkens to a nice brown.

Steve, by any chance is this the same classical that Al showed at the second Newport show a few years ago when it was actually in Newport RI? If so, I had the opportunity to play that guitar, and it was wonderful. But then I get to play a lot of Al's guitars because of the NEL group. Osage is a wonderful tonewood for guitars. I'm not sure how it would translate to a uke, unless you like the sound of a rosewood uke. Osage is very similar to Brazilian in tone as Al has suggested, with an almost identical damping factor.

bbycrts · Jun 14, 2013

I have a friend who has nabbed a 3 - 5 foot Osage orange log for me. He's looking for a sawyer who's willing to cut it into shippable chunks from New York to Oregon - he's having trouble finding anybody willing to saw a log that short. Once sawn, though, he'll sticker it and it will be very slowly dried before I try using it.

Steveperrywriter · Jun 14, 2013

Don -- Probably that was it, I got it in '06' the fall, and it's a cannon. I was thinking that if you topped a tenor OA with cedar, it might have a less bright tone, maybe using Worth Browns to warm it up. I don't think Alan has made many, if any ukes, but I would love to see what he could do. I'll send him a note ...

Steveperrywriter · Jun 20, 2013

Steveperrywriter said:
Don -- Probably that was it, I got it in '06' the fall, and it's a cannon. I was thinking that if you topped a tenor OA with cedar, it might have a less bright tone, maybe using Worth Browns to warm it up. I don't think Alan has made many, if any ukes, but I would love to see what he could do. I'll send him a note ...

Update: Turned out that Alan has made a couple of ukes, and coincidentally to this discussion, one of those is a recent build -- a tenor with Osage orange back and sides, and a spruce top. Stay tuned, I will have more on this shortly.

Steve

Laidback1 · Jun 20, 2013

Was at the A.S.I.A Symposium last week and attending one of Al's sessions on "Everything you ever wanted to know about Scrapers". During the session he passed around a chunk of Osage Orange and it was really a dense, heavy piece of wood. Nice and hard but may be more difficult to work up.....

Rick Turner · Jun 20, 2013

I made several electric bass necks out of Osage orange, aka. "bodark" from the French "bois d'arc"...basically "wood for the bow". Great stuff, and it starts off quite yellow, goes through orange, and eventually turns fairly brown. The thing about it for archery bows is that the sapwood is great in tension and the heartwood is great in compression...like yew...and so it's a naturally growing compound wood.

malweth · Jun 20, 2013

Bill Mc said:
The tree produces a fruit that looks like a human brain. A common name for the tree is "iron wood."

We used to call it "brain tree" (after the nearby town in MA). My forestry schooled uncle told us the true name before we ever looked it up.
I can't comment on the wood, but the tree is interesting!

Bill Mc · Jun 20, 2013

malweth said:
We used to call it "brain tree" (after the nearby town in MA). My forestry schooled uncle told us the true name before we ever looked it up.
I can't comment on the wood, but the tree is interesting!

The fruits lying along an entrance road to a farm in Bucks County back in the late 70's caused me to ask the local farmer/owner about the tree because "brain" just popped into my mind upon seeing the strange fruits. He called it Osage Orange and Iron Wood and related stories to us about just how hard the wood is. Interesting tree for certain.

Rick Turner · Jun 20, 2013

Note that the term "Iron wood" has been applied to many species around the world...along with "Axe breaker". Anywhere that some sort of trees grow with really hard wood, the locals call it Iron Wood. What it actually is....that's another matter entirely and it's in Latin.

jcalkin · Jun 20, 2013

When I was a kid in NJ we called the tree mock orange or monkey orange. Once they hit the ground the fruit makes great targets for a kid with a .22. I made a set of hand gun stocks of osage orange and finished them in poly. Thirty years later they were still bright yellow.

Bill Mc · Jun 20, 2013

jcalkin said:
When I was a kid in NJ we called the tree mock orange or monkey orange. Once they hit the ground the fruit makes great targets for a kid with a .22. I made a set of hand gun stocks of osage orange and finished them in poly. Thirty years later they were still bright yellow.

I should have grown up in Jersey !

Steveperrywriter · Jun 20, 2013

Rhymes with Orange ...

A couple of pictures of the Osage Orange uke Alan built, with his description: "It's got an Engelmann top, and Osage B&S. Most of the dark wood is walnut, but the fingerboard is apple with a walnut stain. The white wood in the trim is Maple, and there's just a little bit of Bloodwood and Pink Ivory in the rosette. The tuners are Waverlys."

I dunno how it plays yet, but with luck, I will in a week or ten days. I'll post some more images then, including a close up of the rosette. Alan does outstanding work there, too, check out the rosette detail on the guitar he built for me:

Steve

Steveperrywriter · Jun 25, 2013

Just a visual follow-up, regarding the Osage Orange uke, by Alan Carruth: A few pix, including the mother-and-child with the Osage Orange guitar ...

Osage Orange?

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