Rind on bamboo

[yellow feather]

I bought a peace of bamboo from Rudderbows . My question is , how thick is the rind on bamboo and how can you tell when you have it off? I've used a scrapper on a small peace and I can't tell any diff. other than that it is smoother. Am I missing something here? Does the rind have to come off? David

[Justin Snyder]

When you get the rind off the color will go from the pale white color to a darker yellow color.  Be carefull not to go to deep as you can cut the power fibers.  You can scrape it down until you have a nice even yellow color.  Try it on the end of a piece and you will see the obvious difference.  Justin

[yellow feather]

Thanks Justin. I just looked at it again and that test peace looks and feels smoother and is a more even yellow. Is that what you mean? It's more like just smoothing the back up? Because I probably only took off a few thousandths. David

[Justin Snyder]

If its a test piece go ahead and take it down a little more. On a bow I usually go until it is all one even color then stop.  Justin

[adb]

I used to scrape my bamboo pretty aggressive, but these days, I'm not. I leave the nodes very proud, basically not touching them at all. I only scrape, or even sand, between nodes, just enough to remove the outer waxy rind on the bamboo. If you don't remove the rind, the bamboo won't take any finish. I don't do much anymore. Go easy with the scraper, as it leaves little marks on the bamboo... potential weak spots.

[yellow feather]

Thanks for the help..David

[radius]

somewhere on this forum is a thread where Marc the Master says that he has been taking down the nodes for years...so i copy him, and so far, no troubles.  I scrape the rind off, like the other guys say, and then hit the nodes lightly with a fine file, and then sand the whole thing deadly smooth.  No troubles at all, even on 65# bows...

[Justin Snyder]

On that little boo backed Ipe I just did I took the nodes down quite a bit. I think it is safe to say the boo on it is under stress. 

[Badger]

Radius, if you sand your nodes smooth you have a dangerous violation going, on a low stess design it might work even on high draw weights but the fibers run straight up almost to the peak of the node, anything off the peak is a violation of the vibers. Maybe just about a 1/32 is safe but anymore than that I wouldn't try.  I have had a few I sanded flat and then overlayed a thin invisble layer of the stuff we can't talk about here. But they were no longer primitive. Steve

[sailordad]

ohhh      shame   shame   everybody knows your name name

[mullet]

  Robustusman will tell you about splinters lifting on boo-backed bows after scraping the rind down and leaving marks. I don't scrape it anymore but steelwool it smooth with 0000 and either stain and seal it or just seal it.