Last summer I found a guy on Craigslist advertising rough cut osage boards. He was just a few minutes away, so I went there to check it out. He had the boards in an old abandoned farmhouse with hundreds, maybe thousands, of others, and we crawled over them to get to the osage. When he handed me the first board or two, I asked if he was sure they were osage because they seemed a little light in weight. He assured me they were and in fact, a few of them had ‘osage 94’ written on them in chalk. He hadn’t cut the tree himself, but got it from someone he seemed to trust. They weren’t the telltale yellow color, but they were old, dusty, rough-cut boards that had aged 20 years, so I didn’t expect them to be neon yellow.

Still skeptical because of the weight, I took a pocket knife and carved into one a bit, and it showed a dirty olive color, and fairly hard not allowing me to get too deep with the knife… not the yellow or gold I was hoping to see, but I thought being so old and rough, maybe they were more golden deeper inside. In the end I took his word for it, got a good deal, bought everything he had, half a pickup load, and brought them home… thinking I was set for osage for a long time. I never touched them again until a couple days ago.

So, I’m finishing up a workbench and wanted to put some of the osage that wasn’t quite bow worthy around the edge of the bench. As I began to run a few pieces through my table saw, I noticed there was no yellow wood revealed in the fresh cuts, and no acidic, bitey, tannic, smell that comes with osage dust. Instead, they were olive colored through and through with no odor. After a short period of denial, I realized I’d been duped, unintentionally I’m sure. But the reality was, that not one stick of that truckload of lumber was osage. So what WAS it?

Some of the boards had remnants of inner bark and full thickness of sapwood on them… the sapwood being thinner, like osage. The freshly exposed heartwood was a light olive color, so I was thinking it was either mulberry or black locust, each tree sharing some such characteristics with osage.

In my research to discern between the two most likely suspects, I learned that black locust is fluorescent… that is, it glows bright yellow under a black light, while mulberry doesn’t glow at all. A quick trip to the hardware store and I was stumbling around in my bow shop in the dark with a black light. First I checked the wood I worked with yesterday, from my truckload of ‘osage’, and it has no fluorescence whatsoever, so it would seem that it’s red mulberry, and not black locust.

I was inquisitive though about how black locust would/should look under the black light so went to my wood rack where I had several staves laying in varying stages of construction, one of which was black locust. As I neared them with the black light, one of them glowed neon yellow like it was radioactive. It was a selfbow stave of black locust. It was really amazing to see. None of the other assorted bow staves glowed in the least. Even the brightest yellow osage staves showed nothing. They looked as non-reactive as any other under the black light.

Here is a picture of an osage stave and a black locust stave. I made a few shavings off of the locust stave with a scraper to reveal fresh wood as freshly cut or sanded wood glows even brighter.

And here are the same two bows under the black light. Just look at those curls!

I knew I had some black locust rough sawn laminations on the shelves someplace and when I neared them with the black light, they lit up like glow sticks as well. As I waved the light over my wood shelves, I came upon two bundles of rough cut lams labeled “black locust” that obviously weren’t. No glow. Upon separating them and closer inspection, they look like they’re probably red elm. I must have labeled them wrong when I was packing everything up to move a while back. Here are a bunch of rough cut lams waiting to be ground. Can you tell which ones are black locust?

How about now?

I just thought it was pretty cool that locust glowed like that, had never heard of it before, and maybe it will help someone i.d. some wood they had questions about.

It seems to be a bow maker you have to be part scientist and detective as well, among other things :^)

Another picture. This is a little closer to what it looks like in person but these pictures don't quite do it justice. I could barely see the osage stave at all, but the locust was just glowing.

That's cool to know. Thanks for sharing. God Bless

yep. I knew someone who created the floor tiles/board with black locust and used it patterned on the dance floor of the bar. it is WILD in black light. -ted

Jeff, I never knew that about BL. Sorry your boards were not osage but mulberry is a good wood. Are you going to try a bow from it? Jawge

Very cool and interesting discovery. LEarn something new every day on LW. . I am covered up in black locust...maybe I need to make a dance floor!

George, you bet. I like mulberry.

My brother made a Mulberry selfbow and until it broke ( due to a pin knot half way up the limb) , he said it was the best shooting selfbow he ever made.

So from a novice- can you use the Black Locust stave to make a self bow? Newt

Cool! Really cool! And to think I thought I had the only glowing bow in the Grail!

Joe

Newt, yes, black locust will make a good selfbow and that is what I intend to do with that stave.

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