Bamboo for horn bows
Hi! I'm planning to make a horn bow with bamboo core to reduce limb weight, because I already made two horn bows, one with elm core and one with maple, but they seemed to me to heavy! I know that old chinese and some of mongol bow core woods was bamboo, so my question is what spieces actually are the best for it and is there a some kind of record of ancient horn bows with bamboo core - what species they used back in the day. I know that tonkin, moso, madake are quite good for that purpose, but tonkin seems to be too small in diameter , moso is all right for that. So maybe you know exact species, which were used! Also, is there a possibility to find bamboo with large(40-60cm) distance between the knots?
Not sure why this misconception is still going around. Strong bamboo is heavier and denser than any wood likely to be found in bowmaking circles.
The hollow nature seems to give people the illusion that bamboo is a light material.
If you mill it down and remove all the power fibers then the pithier inner sections are lighter but it defeats the purpose to remove the strongest most resilient layer. Even if it is just for a core.
Tonkin and Madake are both known for long sections with no nodes.
The hollow nature seems to give people the illusion that bamboo is a light material.
If you mill it down and remove all the power fibers then the pithier inner sections are lighter but it defeats the purpose to remove the strongest most resilient layer. Even if it is just for a core.
Tonkin and Madake are both known for long sections with no nodes.
OK , bamboo for me is new material, that's for sure. My point is to make limbs of bow as light as posible. Slight changes of limb weight make huge impact on shooting speed and feels different. For example my elm core bow was way too slower, then "maple", and both bows were identical in construction and measurements, sinew and horn layers. ( I keep horn, core, sinew layer proportion 3.8mm/ 4.3mm/ 3.5mm in limbs (all functional lenght)) and thats why I make siahs very light and short to reduce weight . I definitely will make some exsperiments with bamboo weight and compression compered to elm, maple, pear . Still a discusion is open. I read that chinese and mongols (by the way Korean too) used this core material . In this site and anywhere else I've not seen recordings about "exact" bamboo species (I've kind of hooked on that), which were used in the past (maybe it is some kind of another"BIG" secret). So ....any smart thoughts?
I think you will find that many secrets are just ignorance. While I can't help you directly, I do have some second hand information.
Edward McEwen has used Tonkin cane. The split sections were heated and flattened so make them easier to match the horn. He has told me he thought it was a good core material.
I think Jaap Koppedrayer uses madake, but he experiments a lot and maybe he has a new favourite.
Both the Chinese (from one of their encyclopaedias in the late Ming) and the Koreans used relatively short sections of bamboo as the core and applied a hardwood handle to the back of the strip.
The stiffness of the bamboo must not be too important judging by how the Koreans treat it: cross-hatching it with an adze and repeatedly flexing it before using it in the core.
Edward McEwen has used Tonkin cane. The split sections were heated and flattened so make them easier to match the horn. He has told me he thought it was a good core material.
I think Jaap Koppedrayer uses madake, but he experiments a lot and maybe he has a new favourite.
Both the Chinese (from one of their encyclopaedias in the late Ming) and the Koreans used relatively short sections of bamboo as the core and applied a hardwood handle to the back of the strip.
The stiffness of the bamboo must not be too important judging by how the Koreans treat it: cross-hatching it with an adze and repeatedly flexing it before using it in the core.
Thanks Bede! That is usefull information. I can use that as starting point for my experiments!
This is the material Korean bowyer start with.
I do not know the bamboo species (could be a scpecies of Phyllostachyls) but it has very straight culm, reasonable thickness and the most important, long internode.
As bamboo node region is very weak in term of tensile. They use one two segments of internode for each limbs. One node at the grip will be supported with extra wood so it does not break easily.
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and near finish.
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I do not know the bamboo species (could be a scpecies of Phyllostachyls) but it has very straight culm, reasonable thickness and the most important, long internode.
As bamboo node region is very weak in term of tensile. They use one two segments of internode for each limbs. One node at the grip will be supported with extra wood so it does not break easily.
[external image]
![[external image]](http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k40/s_issara/yellowcrane/IMG_1217.jpg){kind=link}
and near finish.
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![[external image]](http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k40/s_issara/yellowcrane/IMG_1209.jpg){kind=link}
Bamboo flooring (MOSO) is 700kg m-3 (0.7sg) and Bulletwood is 1100kg m-3 (1.1sg). Ipe is 1050kg m-3.Pat Menzies wrote:
Strong bamboo is heavier and denser than any wood likely to be found in bowmaking circles.
I do not know how much Tonkin or Madake weights and it may be heavier.
Bamboo flooring density is from manufacturer datasheet and bulletwood is from tropix.
Tonkin Cane is 1121
I wouldn't use bamboo flooring as any sort of comparison. It is a mix of the fibers of a less dense species and saturated with glue.
Tonkin power fibers are clearly denser than even tropical wood and far denser than woods like Hickory, Yew or Maple.
Tonkin power fibers are clearly denser than even tropical wood and far denser than woods like Hickory, Yew or Maple.