Bamboo for bows

[bear]

Just a question if you can make bows from our native bamboo, we have it growing every where up here in the top end, or do you need a particular species for this task?

BEAR

[HOOD]

No offence to anyone here, but Bear you'd probably get more info from www.ozbow.net
I know that a lot of the guys there have/are worked/ing with bamboo.

Hood 8)

[Glenn]

Bear, I have seen laminated longbows made from our native or wild bamboo that were very good shooters. I have bought a lot of locally grown Madake (not sure about the spelling) bamboo and found it to be very good for backing selfbows and it would also make a very good lamination under glass as well, an Americam friend of mine has taken a lot of this bamboo back with him over the last couple of years and said that it was probably the best bamboo he has ever used, good rap I thought.
The powerfibres of the bamboo lay just beneath the outside rind of the bamboo, you can see them when you cut the bamboo. they show up as dark dots, the closer they are packed together under the rind the stronger the lamination will be. They will be more spaced out towards the centre of the of the bamboo.
The larger the diametre of the pole the flatter the lamination will be and more power fibres will be left in the lamination when ground flat. It's preferable to have the nodes as far apart as possible as they are the weak points of the bamboo, the flatter the nodes are the better as well as you wont have to grind them as much to prepare them....Glenn...

[bear]

Thanks Glenn, very helpful I might look into this a bit more and see what happens.

BEAR