bamboo ferrule

[desi2960]

its still being used

at this point we have had zero problems, i cannot believe its been a year, so many new things to try. i don't think i will ever live long enough to get out of this world alive.

d. p. do you want a shaft or a ferrule?

madfox, that shaft is from an old house cue, i have about 200 old cues and thats where i get most of my shaft wood. i like to think i am building a newer shaft out of a piece of wood that might have already hit thousands of balls.

redneckjim
i went down to the bamboo farm here in warsaw missouri and just cut myself a bunch, joking aside the bamboo is what they call strand woven engeneered bamboo. its used in flooring, and stairway banisters, or the radial spliced pieces like you see in bamboo fly rods either one works. both to me have a very similar hit.

 

[d.p]

d. p. do you want a shaft or a ferrule?

ferrule

Msg Length

 

[whammo57]

this is how strong bamboo is....................

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt...oggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&p=bamboo scaffolding

Kim

 

[Sloppy Pockets]

I know this is an old thread, but I have to disagree with a lot of what has been said about Tonkin cane here.

It may be that commercially manufactured Tonkin laminates are available that are light and have a low modulus, maybe because they are taken from the entire thickness of the material (including the pith). However, the very outside of the culm, the part that fly rod makers craft their blanks with, is both much denser and much stiffer than sugar maple.

Typical specific gravity of the outer "power fibers" in a quality culm is between 1.15 and 1.20. That's almost twice as dense as maple, and right about up there with ebony. If you drop the tip section of a fine fly rod from the boat, you will never see it again as it will sink quickly to the bottom of the lake.

Young's modulus in the outer power fibers (just under the enamel outer skin) is around 5-6 million psi, about three times the modulus of hard maple. Very stiff stuff. The tip of a fly rod is only around .060",and may get down to .048" in some ultralight tapers. The stresses in a fly rod during a typical cast are greatest in the last 6" at the tip, and yet they almost never break from a cast, or even fighting a heavy trout. Electric car windows kill more fly rods than fishing ever does.

Maybe Bob Nunley will see this thread and comment. He is an instructor on the "Ask the Instructor" forum, but I mostly know of him as an extremely competent and experienced bamboo fly rod maker. I'm sure he will have more info than I do.

I've been interested in cane rod making since I caught my violin bow making teacher sneaking a peak at Everett Garrison's book when we weren't looking, but my very best buddy has been at it for almost 30 years. I've read all of his books and have owned several of his rods, and he's been pushing me to get into it since he met me (probably to avoid having to sell me rods below market value).

Just like cue making, though, there's too many guys out there now, so there's no money in it. My friend makes over six figures at his day job, so that thought never affected him. He's more concerned with large projects, like making accurate copies of ten rods that once belonged to (now deceased) famous fishing authors and were donated to the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, VT after their passing. I helped him measure all of them to record the tapers (three micrometer readings taken across the facets at 5" increments, each rod measured three times and the results averaged later on), and to take closeup photos of all the details. Quite a tedious but very interesting weekend.

As for myself, I got as far as making my own planing forms and buying some high quality cane. It's a pretty fascinating material. I can definitely see uses for it in cue making, but a solid shaft of dense power fibers would probably weigh almost eight ounces, and would deflect like a son of a gun if nothing else.

 

[Sloppy Pockets]

In sheetmetal structures, a comparatively soft material (some sort of plastic or even balsa wood) can be placed between two thin sheets of aluminum to make a lamination that is almost as stiff as a single thick sheet of aluminum while saving weight. In college we had to build up a lamination using fiberglass, kevlar, and some paper honeycomb. When it was cured, you couldn't bend it over your knee, but it weighed next to nothing.

This is called "monocoque construction". I've made wood strip canoes using northern white cedar that is only 3/16 -1/4 " thick that is encapsulated between two sheets of fiberglass cloth and epoxy. The result is a light but extremely rigid and strong skin that can withstand plenty of abuse.

Here is a photo of one I made for my wife. The boat weighs only 20 pounds, two pounds less than my granddaughter in the boat with her weighed at the time. This one was made from basswood and black walnut, and is only 3/16" at the bottom and 1/8" thick at the sheer, with 4oz glass cloth and System Three epoxy inside and out. It's a very strong construction technique.

 

[carguy]

I'm so glad you posted this. Recently I tried to float a piece of bamboo in a glass of water to determine if the specific gravity was over or under 1.0. It sank, so it's more than 1.0, therefore it's heavier than maple, which floats.
It was puzzling since all the generic specific gravity charts I found list it as being a very light material. It's actually not, as far as ferrule materials go.
The lightest ferrule material is still not the one you use. It's the one you don't use

Robin Snyder

 

[JerseyBill]

bamboo

I have been using bamboo (Tonkin) in some of my cues for awhile now. The
feel from the bamboo is different than other materials I have used. It seems
to just have that certain feel. Anyway, bamboo pound-for-pound is 6 times
stronger than steel. I use laminated bamboo that is even stronger. I have
3 more cues in the works which will have bamboo handles and points.

Can you show me a picture of bamboo in it's raw state before you cut a ferrule or butt piece?
thanks, never saw it, is it available ?
Bill

 

[Sloppy Pockets]

I'm so glad you posted this. Recently I tried to float a piece of bamboo in a glass of water to determine if the specific gravity was over or under 1.0. It sank, so it's more than 1.0, therefore it's heavier than maple, which floats.
It was puzzling since all the generic specific gravity charts I found list it as being a very light material. It's actually not, as far as ferrule materials go.

Yeah, I love these major databases and engineering websites, but they do have their flaws at times. The Wood Database lists the material simply as "Bamboo", which is about as species-specific as saying a given wood is "tree wood". They show a huge range in sg, from .50 to .85 @ 12%MCdb, which is what you might expect if you lumped several domestic hardwoods into one generic grouping.

The remarks I made above addressed Tonkin cane only. Most manufactured lumber products are made from other species, particularly Moso (food grade) bamboo. Moso is what most chop sticks and cooking utensils are made from. My bamboo chopsticks and rice paddles float in the sink when I wash them. A Tonkin chopstick would most likely sink, depending on the individual culm and how much of the pith side it contained.

I think it's safe to assume that most bamboo you find will not be Tonkin since all of it I know of is brought into the country by folks that sell directly to fly rod makers. There was only one major distributor for Tonkin for almost a century, and that was Charles H. Demerest. It was only available in wrapped bundles of 20, with no prior inspection allowed for grading. The rejection rate was very high, sometimes all 20 of them. You think you cue makers are meticulous? Cane rod makers put the anal in analysis.

Back in the 90s, fly rod maker and author George Mauer made a trip to China and spent several weeks grading tens of thousands of bamboo culms to get what he thought was the best for rod makers. Andy Royer accompanied him on a subsequent trip and they joined together for another purchase.

Harold Demerest, son of founder Charles Demerest, died several years ago. George Mauer drank himself to death a couple years ago. I don't know if Charles Demarest is still in business, but if you want premium Tonkin cane culms, you will likely want to get them directly from Andy Royer. His is the finest available today.

One of the more intriguing possibilities in cue making for me is the idea of making my own pie-shaped laminates that can be glued together radially like a fly rod is made, then taking off the points on the lathe. All sorts of woods could be married together this way, and the joints could be hidden under the wrap area. I think greater strength and stability could be achieved by doing this, as well as selectively balancing the butt by using materials of varying densities in ways that haven't been tried yet.

Tonkin or Moso bamboo might be a real cool material to investigate using these techniques. I still have four choice 12' culms in my wood rack. I'm still deciding which non-remunerative business to get involved with next, rod making or cue making, but if I do get into cues, I will certainly make a few with Tonkin cane in them somewhere.

 

[Sloppy Pockets]

Can you show me a picture of bamboo in it's raw state before you cut a ferrule or butt piece?

Here's a of couple shots that show both the whole, seasoned bamboo culms and a cross-section view of the arrangement of fiber density at the butt of the culm (greatest fiber density right at the outside). The butt is the thickest portion, so it has the thickest layer of power fibers, but the nodes there are pretty close together.

In the pic of the whole culms, you can see the problem with using this as shaft material. Not only are the walls fairly thin (rarely over 3/8" thick), but there are the nodes along the length that must be dealt with. Fly rod makers usually just heat-press these flat and then plane the strips to shape, but for cues, where you wouldn't want a node on the sight line of the shaft, you would have to splice them out, and that takes a lot of time and experience to do correctly. Rod makers get a premium for "nodeless" rods.

 

[desi2960]

im just a dumb guy

And I know nothing about building flyrods, yet I know how to use them. Now back to the subject of pool cues. I used a bamboo material that is called strand woven engineered bamboo, you can Google that., it is 1/2 the weight of the same size grice ferrule. Those are the two I weighed.

 

[QMAKER]

Bamboo ferrules

I recently cut some ferrule blanks out of bamboo (3/4 square x 1"0) and stabilized them with acrylic resin. I gave several away to local CM's and
intend to turn a few down into ferrules for my own use. Once I get them down to the size I use I will weigh them and report back. I really like bamboo for certain cue parts and have recently stabilized several 1 1/2" x 12" pieces. These pieces where dyed with a black dye and gives them an interesting color although the bamboo is so tight very little dye penetrates the bamboo even at 30" of vacuum.

 

[desi2960]

i tried different sealers

i used 24 hr epoxy, superglue and acryloid-b72 to fill the voids in the bamboo, i like the b-72 best but its a big pain in the !!!!!!!!!!

 

[BobN]

Coming from someone who makes his living with Bamboo (I make high end custom Bamboo fly rods),I think you will be shocked how durable this material is. I have bamboo fly rods in my collection that are over 120 years old, and still is usable as they were the day they were made. The only thing that can hurt this material is to soak it for years on end in water. As a matter of fact my cue Maker and friend Gary Johnson, is currently building me a cue with Bamboo and ivory inlays. I am making the ferrule stock up for him to make my barrels of Bamboo also. It looks as though it might be different from yours. I am building the ferrule material much like I build a fly rod. The eventually round stock will start at as a hexagonal shape made of six Percision milled pieces at 60° angles. This will concentrate what we in the flyrod industry call the power fibers so that you get the most out of the material. Using this configuration gives you the utmost strength and durability from the bamboo.

Just as an added note to let you know how strong the Bamboo actually is assembled in this manner, many Rod makers, including myself in the past, have made ferrules for Fly Rods from Bamboo. These ferrules, Which on a fly rod are basically a 2 inch long tube that fits the pieces of the flyrod together, are much lighter than what you would see on a pool cue, are usually less than 0.040" thick at the walls and will withstand the rigors of constant bending, casting and the fighting and landing of fish. Bamboo, actually grass, or a weed, is much stronger and much lighter than most wood or bony material that would be acceptable for use under this kind of pressure. I have no doubt that these ferrules will serve this cue well for decades to come.

 

[arps]

question: is this 1-piece bamboo? i mean, a 13mm bamboo stem is thick for regular bamboo wood. you'd also have to remove the outer "bark" of the stem to expose the wood, which would further make the wood thinner. or did you use the node part where there's thicker wood (not straight though)?

 

[desi2960]

google

Strand woven bamboo, or how bamboo flyrods are made, or read this thread