Now for that post. First I have got to see if the wood is dry enough to use. Ill do this by cutting a piece out of the middle and calculating its specific gravity. I simply use displacement of water to get the volume, then a grams scale to get mass. The gravity on this post is .81 which is perfect. Osage, on the average, when dried, is .82.



Now to clean it up. Im going to make the riser out of osage, so ill need to clean it up before I can use it. This is one of the posts Rloving (Rowell) brought to me. Thanks Rowell. Im going to get the bark off with an axe to see how much wood I can get from it. This post had been setting on the ground for a while and some carpenter ants had taken up residents in it. So im going to clean it up and cut out all the ant, hole wood.


After the bark is off, ill hit it with a plane to get a flat side to tac to a board so I can cut a straight edge with my table saw. I really need to get a jointer.



Post cleaned up and looks like ive got plenty of good wood for a riser.