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Well, I offered it up for sale or trade, and aparently nobody was interested.  So..... I decided to get a little creative, use one of the rosewood fingerboards for a filler, and a new OM has begun it's life

It is a little different looking, but I kinda like the look of the 3 piece back.

Next thing was to try bending the sides... I have never worked with Osage before, so this was a little trial and error work. This stuff is as close as I have seen to Braz as far as density and weight, so I decided I would thickness the sides to about .085 and just try to bend them without any water at all. To my surprise, it bent beautifully with no water at all. I turned the heat on the blanket full blast and waited until I could see the wood start to give a little, then cranked down on the waist and then slid the side cauls in place. I then cut the heat to meduim for 15 mins and let it cool to room temp again.

There was a little spring back, but nothing I cant take care of when it goes into the mold.

 

By the way, that is a curly cherry dread I'm working on behind it... been carving braces for the top all day.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Thats a really good idea to use a rosewood fingerboard as a filler. I really like the look of it also.

Good luck on this guitar. It sounds like it is going to be a cool one when its all done.

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-Rob Eckert
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Having never bent Osage before I am stashing away your info thanks. It is on my list of woods I would like to use in the future.

           Kirby

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

Oooh, and I just about to buy that set of Osage.   (just kidding)

I like the contrasting wood look. 

Cool, Ken. 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

will have Rosewood Binding?

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

If I may offer some advice:

Having built a few Osage guitars, I find the two biggest problems are that it's really chippy, and it has that color....

Scribe the sides before you rout for the binding rabbets to minimize chippout. Try to avoid hitting the back with the plane as you trim back the bindings.

Most dark woods just look washed out next to the bright orange of freshly cut Osage. You can go with black and white, which work with anything, but that gets dull. On my last Osage guitar I figured since I couldn't lick 'em.. I used Blue Mahu (it's actually green) for the binding and center stripe, and bloodwood for a lot of the trim, and it didn't look garish at all. A small amount of brown toner in the FP helped, too.

FWIW

I did some experimenting today with some blue dye that I got from stewmac a while back. The main growth rings of the osage dont take a stain hardly at all, but the softwood between the growth rings stain pretty good. All in all, the blue dye straight fromt he bottle and wiped with a paper towel looks pretty good. I'll most likely go with this dye for the final color.

 

Also, I bought some rosewood binding from Shane at High Mountain a while back, and have been wondering what guitar to use it on... I guess I know now :)

By the way, the blue dye on the rosewood gives a pretty color too, making the softwood between the rings sort of a greenish purple, and the rings it turns black. I think it will look ok when it is done, but I know it sounds weird right now.. I just couldnt take the bright yellow color for a guitar.

I hope it turns out sounding brazzy also. I have already learned about the chipping and will take your hint and tips AL. Thanks for sharing!

Here is a pic of the wood with the blue dye on it.... I may try several coats to see what happens on some scrap..

 

Of course the one on the left is unstained and the one on the right is stained... guess you can tell where I dropped the drop of dye from the bottle... I tried mixing it with solvent, and there was barely any difference...I may also order a bottle of brown dye and a bottle of black dye and experiment with these as well..

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Reguards,

Ken H

oh yeah.. one more thing... I now have 5 guitars I am building at once..3 dreads... oregon myrtle, cherry and malasyan ebony, and 2 OM's.. a maple cutaway and now the osage OM.

The 3 dreads are all comissions... the OM's I am building for speculation and demo purposes.

In the picture above, I am gluing the braces on a top for one of the dreads. lots of clamps... lots of them! I have 40 and I could use another 40... guess I'll have to build them

Looks like I am going to make a switch over to cherry necks. I just bought a pallet load of custom sawn cherry neck blanks. SHould be enough for about 200+ necks. All of them have the grain running parallel to the 4" face. The way I am going through necks, it wont take long to whittle down the pile..

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Reguards,

Ken H