Hi all, I'm looking to make a 25 pound 'board-bow' from a single piece of material. I like the idea of using bamboo for this and a search of the internet shows a few folk who've done this successfully using solid bamboo flooring pieces, either on their own or with a backing. There appear to be four main types of solid bamboo flooring;
1. Horizontal. From what I've read this is best avoided?
2. Regular bamboo vertically stacked. This appears not to be heat treated.
3. 'Caramelised' bamboo vertically stacked. This is not dyed but heat treated. I've read that bamboo gets significantly stronger/stiffer when heat treated as well as taking on this darker colouring. I'm thinking this is therefore probably better for a bow provided it doesn't get too brittle?
4. Strand woven bamboo. This is where the bamboo is broken down into strands, heat treated and then reconstituted into planks under very high pressure with an adhesive, so kind of a natural-fiber composite material. This sounds like it could be very useful but I'm betting a lot depends on the adhesive and how homogeneous are the fibers used. My gut says if the adhesive is poor then the material will take on a bend very quickly.
I can find mention of all of the above in relation to bow making but I haven't been able to find a comparison of these or a definitive or educated opinion on which is best. I'm guessing it wouldn't be difficult to get hold of a sample of each and make a couple of simple arms out of each to test on a makeshift rig for bending, breaking point and the extent to which they will take on bend over time. Know of anyone who's done this?
Lastly, I have some unidirectional 50mm glass tape I could epoxy onto the back and belly if need be. This would complicate matters so I'm wondering what folks' opinion is of this. Also, if the plans I'm following indicate a 14mm thick bamboo layer, how many mm would folk normally reduce to replace with glass laminate? I'm guessing it would need to be significantly thinner for even a very thin single layer of glass?
