Primitive Archer

yes indeed another beaut!  well done and very well crafted as always. 

Quote from: superdav95 on July 07, 2025, 04:19:50 pm

Yes.  Very true.  A balance struck.  I’ve blown a lot of these up knowing where the safety margin is and how far it can be pushed before failure.  Heat treatment really is the key component of all this to get the belly to resist compression crush or failure.   In my opinion bamboo properly heat treated is tough to beat pound for pound.

Have you managed to heat treat the bellies to the extent tnat the backs fail?

there were some test results published a few years back that indicated with certian species of Banboo, the core materiel (belly side) had compression qualities that overpowered the outside (back side) in bend tests.

Yes I have.  Although uncommon.  More often it just splits up the middle.  If the heat treatment is too deep it will make the back be more brittle and find a weak point and lift a small section of the   In early tests this happened as I was purposely pushing limits to see.  Bamboo can take a lot though. 

Quote from: sleek on July 06, 2025, 06:02:20 pm

 Here's a video for it likely ship building. Notice the strap on the tension side of the bend.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18RTHTaKwB/

Yes, the strap is applied before the bend to limit stretching of the convex surface of the piece.
Raising a splinter is likely the sole concern of the shipwights.

With a bow limb, a strap applied (prebending, and in the location Dave shows above) will compress the limb's back, maybe unduly if it is expected to serve as the tension side of the limb.

Experimentation might be neccesary with similar methods to bring a bamboo working limb into the best balance of tension or compression qualities for becoming a game changer.

As bamboo excels in tension already, My guess is that whatever works best for the belly side of the limb will be where you find a game changer.

Yes.  Very true.  A balance struck.  I’ve blown a lot of these up knowing where the safety margin is and how far it can be pushed before failure.  Heat treatment really is the key component of all this to get the belly to resist compression crush or failure.   In my opinion bamboo properly heat treated is tough to beat pound for pound. 

Those skins look great on that bow, Pappy. I pulled my special set of copperhead skins out of the refrigerator last week to put on a bow and it looked like something had been chewing on them. Made me sick. They were a perfect matching pair. I checked all of my other skins and sprayed them with permethiam. Oh, well. And I wish you could send some of that rain down here, been in the high nineties for two weeks now.

Those are some good looking points! Regarding Ben's question, Will Lord has some excellent videos on Facebook.