Fence post??????

[alscalls]

I found an old fence post in an old barn on a hunt ........the top of this post is in the pic.
I took it home and cut a piece from it and WOW!
The call I am turning from it is no where near done I just needed to move on to other projects.
I wonder what kind of wood this is it is very dense and changes in the light like a hologram.
What kind of wood do you think it is???........... I think it may be Osage But I aint sure.




Cracks are a problem for sure but I kinda like em as long as there is no new ones. An old fence post Can hold a treasure of beauty. What do you folks think?

I left the call over sized to see if any new cracks form, if it is OK then I will keep working on it......It has two existing cracks on the other side so this one may get trashed if they do not turn out of the call but I could not wait for you all to see this wood.

[vvarmitr]

Yeaper, that' Osage!

Now you want to talk about a bow wood. That's the best!.

[Hidehunter]

Looks real good Al 

[duckslayer]

WOW! that looks really nice, I am starting to see that you never know where you might find the next call comming from.  Great looking call.

[pitw]

Looks really cool to me Al .  Don't be throwing it away as you know some of your discards bring in the odd coyote.  I wonder how many calls I've burned up cleaning old fence lines .  Any of you ever make calls from diamond willows.

[Jimmie in Ky]

Another possibilty is mulberry and this looks more like it than osage. Put a chunk of it out in the sun for a couple of weeks and see if the color changes to a nice chestnut. I know of a mulberry fencepost still in the ground after eighty years and still solid. Its a corner post and is about 16 inches in diameter. It is as good as osage for calls and I use it quite often. In fact I still have several blanks of it and can produce more from what came down a while back. It was brought in here to th more temperate state for silk production way back when. The silk program did not work out but left many fine trees and some great jams and jellies 

Oh, and this wood grows with cracks in it naturally. The trees tend to spread out in the canopy and get huge. This puts a lot of stresses on the wood itself. I have one out here still growing that you can see through the center of a 15 inch limb from the split. These tend to be dark brown in color if they do not break open and are visible in the boards.

Willow is not one I have tried yet. And I do not get the diamond fungus this far south. I do get it in sasafras once in a long while but its rare.  I don't think willow would be dense enough for a good call and figure in it is almost nonexistant. I have carved some that was as hard as a rock but I forget te species name. Jimmie

[blacky]

Looks good to me Al.

[nick]

nice call  Al how many do you think youll get out of the post

[alscalls]

nice call  Al how many do you think youll get out of the post

Hard to say Nick 4-6 depending on the cracks.

[msmith]

Good find Al! Like duckslayer said, ya never know where the next call is coming from. I have chunks of firewood laying around in the garage that I couldn't bring myself to burn. Cherry, walnut, maple. I have been chopping up and burning old fence posts. I can see that from now on, they will get cut into blanks, just in case. I'll at least be able to scare up some black locust.

[wvhillbillyhowler]

man al thats fine looking call maybe I shoot that shotgun beside your head again we can find somemore fine wood :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

[BigB]

I'm not sure, but it's either hedge or mulberry like Jimmy said.  I don't have any old mulberry on hand, but do have some old hedge posts.  Both hedge and mulberry are a yellow colored wood when they are freshly cut.  And they start to get that tan to light brown color with age.  Here's some old hedge posts that we had laying around before Dad cut them up for firewood this winter.   




Here are a few calls that I have made from those old posts.






Once I cut into an old post and make a blank out of it, I quickly seal the ends of the blank with wood glue.  I don't have any paint or anchor seal, so I use the wood glue.  I let the blanks rest for a few months to acclimate and let the internal stresses adjust themselves.  If you don't have the ends sealed when doing this, the ends will guarantee to check on ya.  Once I turn it on the lathe, I make sure to put a finish on the wood right away.  I have forgotten to put a finish on it once done on the lathe, and came back a few days later to finish it and seen the check marks in the wood.  But when I finish them right away, the check marks don't seem to show up.


The old posts are great finds and make some really cool calls.  And the chatoyance in the wood is awesome as well.

Brian

[Frogman]

Brian,

Those are some fine looking calls!!

Jim

[alscalls]

  +1

[Hidehunter]

Looks real nice