Ok, I just measured the thickness of the dried up hair strip. It's 1.64 to 1.45mm thick along its 7 inch length and 1 inch width. It shrunk some and became unstable, making waves along its length, like a ribbon that was laid down but not straightened taught. It certainly has an amount of stiffness too it, standing out like a diving board when held between two fingers. I've bent it around Ina compete U shape with no complaint from it, or any set, with it springing immediately back to flat like a spring when released. So far, on that front, so good. Also I pulled and pushed together a section and half an inch long with a decent amount of effort with no give. However.....
I did a little tugging on some of the individual strands and a few of them, without enough force to break the strands, come out of their glue matrix like a straw out of its paper wrapper. Others are so tangled in there they break without disbanding from the glue. I'm hoping the ones that came loose just didn't have a large enough surface area bonding them. Tomorrow I will cut a strip of osage to bond another sample of hair to in order to get any concrete numbers of increased compression abilities.