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Offline ccase39

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making a bamboo bow
« on: October 06, 2015, 09:35:47 pm »
Hi guys,
I have been making some bows here and there and feel like I have gotten pretty decent at it. All I have done so far have all been board bows. I have a ton, I mean literally a TON of bamboo growing that I have started cutting down and "curing". I would like to try my hand at a bamboo backed bamboo bow or all bamboo bow. I have seen a few sites that talk about using flooring but cannot really get it straight how to process it to make it bow wood. Most vertical flooring in bamboo I find are comprised of several pieces of bamboo compressed together sort of like a plywood. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
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Offline bowandarrow473

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2015, 10:25:03 pm »
I have not made many bamboo bows, but have found that if the stuff is large diameter that you can use the outer fibers of the bamboo as the belly and the inner as the back and it helped to balance the forces as bamboo is very tension strong and the outer fibers are stronger than the inners. You tiller on the back. As for flooring, you need to look for vertical grain running the length of the board, like boards, the grain needs to be straight up and down.
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Offline PatM

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2015, 10:39:51 pm »
If you want to build an all bamboo bow properly you need to follow some Yumi principles or use the bamboo as you would make a glass bow.
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Offline Peacebow_Coos

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2015, 10:44:19 pm »
I've used the vertically laminated boo flooring before, it worked good but it was only 35# and about 65" long.  I've heard of others using it too, hopefully some of them will chime in. 
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blackhawk

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2015, 07:35:35 am »
Leave the flooring stuff for the floors and use the stuff your cutting for bows...i havent made a all bamboo bow before,or one with a boo belly,but the bellies do well if they are tempered...they dont "have" to be but itll help it take less set,and be stronger in compression...youll have to do it before you glue the belly on...all your lams will have to have a nice even bend thickness taper before glue up so it comes out basically already tillered(not an easy task if you havent made any lam bows yet)...so any tweaking in the tiller and weight is removed from the sides....

Maybe james will chime in...hes made oodles of these,and they shoot awesome..i know cus i have one ;)
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Offline bubby

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2015, 08:45:58 am »
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Offline Peacebow_Coos

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2015, 12:05:23 am »
Quote from: blackhawk on October 07, 2015, 07:35:35 am
Leave the flooring stuff for the floors and use the stuff your cutting for bows...

Haha, that's well put.  I'm with ya after seeing that build along bubby!  Gotta find me some bamboo to cut too.
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Offline jayman448

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #7 on: October 08, 2015, 02:35:58 am »
No need to get making yumis. Its suoer easy. All u need to do is make sure the pieces of bamboo in the flooring are running so they are not going to bend sideways. Glue on your bamboo backing, and cut out your profile. Then tiller. Bamboo is a grass not a wood so there are no grains to worry about. Expect it t take set. All bamboo board and boo backed biw has to be the easiest most fool proof thing to make. Its really bloody easy. Even i didnt screw it up. And you can make a fifty pound bow simple enough. Easy peasy
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Limbit

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #8 on: October 08, 2015, 04:08:07 am »
I make all Boo bows here in Taiwan all the time and the first thing you learn about bamboo is that your know very little about which species it is and the species differ drastically is usability. Some is just crap. The higher and colder the climate (within the species limits) the better the fibers tend to be in both tension and their tendency not to take compression set. I almost always laminate them into shorter and wider bows if they are large diameter and laminate more narrow recurved longbows out of smaller diameter stuff. I ALWAYS HEAT TREAT the belly lam with a heat gun to reduce set and IT WORKS. I also do this for non-laminated boo bows. There is a principle I was  taught by my teacher and it was to watch diameter size. If it is too big a diameter, the bamboo tends to not have any snap to it, but if it is too small a diameter, it can't be used due to the thickness of the bamboo wall. I was taught to look for bamboo around the size of a CD and to go at least 1 km up a mountainside before trying to collect some. Always start to cut about a meter off the ground where bamboo's nodes begin to become more even and the walls more consistent. Most of what I've collected has been great once heat treated and taken very little set as for bamboo. It might be worth your time to look into Bhutanese bamboo bow making. They essentially take the natural taper of the bamboo from the ground level up and splice two pieces at the handle with a simple bound lap splice. I've made one like that and it tillered out straight away!
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Offline mullet

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2015, 07:19:19 am »
I have one made from flooring that pulls 55# @ 28" and shoots like a dog. It is very slow. I think it would be better if it had the flooring as a core wood and real bamboo on the back and belly.
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Offline ccase39

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2015, 07:12:30 pm »
I ordered a solid vertical grain bamboo board for projects I found online. Its 1" by 12" by 6 feet. Anyone use anything like this?
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Offline bubby

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #11 on: October 10, 2015, 07:37:21 pm »
Personally I would go boo back and belly and hard maple core
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failure is an option, everyone fails, it's how you handle it that matters.
The few the proud the 27🏹

Offline Sidmand

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Re: making a bamboo bow
« Reply #12 on: October 11, 2015, 01:09:18 pm »
I'm about to try a boo back and belly with a red oak core.  Mainly cause I have half a dozen 1/8 inch thick strips of red oak that I thought was white oak, but discovered I was wrong.  It was an explosive discovery :)
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