Cross cut or cut at a 45 degree angle yeilds a chatoyance that is fantastic, with a good CA finish it will look like a piece of Tiger Eye gem stones.
Osage Orange/Bodark/Bois`D Arch or Hedge is a fun wood but it is so slow to dry it can be forced but it need about a year after being cut into boards about 1 inch thick. we usually cut the trunk and larger limbs about 18 inches long then cut about 1 inch on neither side of the very heart of the section, that gives us 2x18 or so slice, but you have to toss the very center 2 inches away, You might be able to seal it with Paraffin canning wax, just seal the ends of the boards, let the end surface dry then you can melt the wax in an old pot, or the stuff we keep for bowls we use a propane torch and melt the Paraffin onto the ends. cut up as much as you can like I said about an inch thick, coat the ends and keep it in a dry place.
to force dry it cut it into 1 inch square by five and a half, then put a few pieces at a time in a microwave , hit it for 20 seconds , but first you need to weigh the pieces, a cheap postal scale works great, let the first batch cool off and do another batch do them for 20 seconds , keep weighing them after they have cooled, then nuke them again, once they quit loosing weight, they are as good as kiln dried, and turning get's a little harder, but finishing becomes a lot easier, since you don't have to fight the oil that's naturally in the wood.
If you don't let it dry chances are better than good the blank will crack, and also cross cut or bias cut for chatoyance you better use a real light touch and a SHARP tool, it;'s really hard to turn, because it wants to crack along the grain lines, but when you get a pen it is a beautiful piece of wood and amazes people.
Your pen in the picture is pretty, it's strange how some get that swirl in it, it's not really a Burl in the truest form, but it can get some incredible grain figure. Nice job!! Oh I forgot some places they call it Horse Apple:biggrin: the wood of a thousand names
