Next, I got to decide how much to take off the limbs. Stuff works horribly. So far I don't like it. I can't draw knife the belly. It will dig in (bevel down of course) but then the grain lifts up in front of the blade and splinters up. Quick way to ruin a bad situation. The belly heart wood laughs at my ferriers rasp. Only thing that is effective is the good ole nicholson 49 rasp. And scraping. So I might have to thin down my belly wood with careful, I mean careful use of the bandsaw. Figured make my safety lines 1/4" longer than the "back" width. So the tip is 5/8" wide, so cut down with bandsaw 7/8". The fade is 1.25" wide, so cut down to 1.5". And down the rest scraping with my draw knife and card scrapers. But the trick with the bandsaw is to cut with the profile of the back. In other words, I can't make a straight cut from the fades to the tip to thin teh belly. I have to stay with the humps and bumps and knots.

I thought this stuff worked easier than osage, but I was dead wrong.