So... There's probably a good reason that Osage Orange costs almost twice what Cherry costs and probably 33% more than walnut... Especially when you consider that the trees can be almost free vs cherry and walnut logs.....
Osage orange is not usually found in long, straight, knot and twist free logs.... Most Osage is horrible, gnarly, knotty, lumpy, twisty stuff.... And that's not an efficient place to start for guitar wood.
So.... What is your cost structure? Can you pick through the whole stack for 1 board or do you have to pay to have the log cut? Is it already good and dry or do you have to wait a couple years for green wood to dry/season. Do you have an outlet for the wood you can't use for guitar stuff? Do you resaw or do you have to pay for someone else to do that. Do you have a big wide sander or do you have to pay someone?
Perhaps $3 or $4/board foot air dried sounds decent. But lets take a best case... Say one 3' section is clear for backs on the board and another smaller board has a 4' long section clear for sides.... But you had to buy both and that was 16 board feet. $16x4 =$64... Hopefully you can get 2 sets out of it.... $32/set in wood alone. But say you gotta pay someone to resaw it. Let's say $75 for that because of the setup time. Now you are at $139 for 2 sets - or about $70 each..... But you had to do 100% of the legwork....
And at that price - you get what you get. There is no looking at pix on the web and deciding on the best one.. It's yours.....
Now... $40/set on top of that doesn't sound like a bad charge for somebody else to post pix you can agonize over without having to make 300 phone calls and trips all over creation + finding the people to do all this work for you.
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