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 Lewis B |
why not soak? |
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Posts: 35 06/25/2009 19:36 |
I just rough plane 6 strips that I soaked and it seems like the way to go, but like all good ideas,there must be someone that thinks differently about it.
Does anyone have anything negitve to say about soaking before planing?Any long term affects, pros or cons. all replies are welcome. Lewis
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oddsnrods |
#1 | |||
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Posts: 219 06/25/2009 20:33 |
Soaking unplaned strips seems to help before straightening the strips and squeezing the nodes over a heat gun during dry depths of winter. Seems to work well
without soaking....as with most things in bamboo rod-making...it's a state of mind. Never tried planing damp strips though, could be a rust making
adventure.
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HERMES2069 |
Soaking | #2 | ||
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Posts: 554 06/27/2009 06:40 |
If you use the Morgan Hand Mill, you really need to soak. You are cutting two sides at once. Cutting six strips, if you use the Mill from rough to finish is a
chore. Four strips, is a real chore. It's great excercise.
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BigTJ |
#3 | |||
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Posts: 747 06/27/2009 09:55 |
Soaking works great. It gives me more margin for error while straightening and speeds up the heating process as the water lets the strips pick up heat more
quickly. The only issues I've had are that if you are going to rough plane the moisture causes a buildup of "gack" on the router bit and the
strips tend to bend as they dry into a bow. So to counter that I just dry the strips under a board with weight on it for a couple days and both problems go
away.
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Lee Koch |
Why not to soak | #4 | ||
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Posts: 502 06/27/2009 10:08 |
The latent fear about soaking is that not all that added moisture will get pushed out during heat treating, and you will end up with a more "noodly"
rod than you would have had otherwise. Many respected names in the craft will tell you that that's not an issue if you heat treat properly, but the latent
fear/suspicion still exists, and I'm one of those that harbors it.
It certainly is true that soaking makes flattening nodes, straightening and planing much easier. Lee |
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Lewis B |
#5 | |||
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Posts: 36 06/27/2009 17:26 |
Thanks for all the replies, , I dont have to worry about the "gank" since I hand plane, and I THINK I wont have a bowing problem because I bind each
(6 pieces)section till they dry. Its about a gazlion degrees in my shop so Im guessing it should only take 3 or four days to dry before heat treating
Lewis
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flyman.flyfishingarkan... |
#6 | |||
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Posts: 24 06/27/2009 20:55 |
No need to wait before heat treating. By the time you get the angles cut and the oven heated up, they'll have dried enough. Harry Boyd's heat treating
fixtures keep the strips straight.
Soaking after heat treating, the so-called wet-wet method also works. I prefer to rough taper wet, but let the cane firm up a bit for final taper, some do both wet. No problem with rusting planes, machines or forms. At least a couple of makers are doing for sale rods wet-wet. If you heat set your glue you don't have to do anything special before finishing. If you use a cold glue, 3 days is enough drying time here in Arkansas most of the year, much less this time of year. Be careful with nodeless when soaking. Many glues will not handle it. The biggest disadvantage was pointed out by Harry. You have to know when you are going to have time to plane strips. If life or bussines is chaotic, dry might be wiser... Bud-Wi-Sir... Bud-Wi- It is far, far too hot too early!! Larry |
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BigTJ |
#7 | |||
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Posts: 748 06/30/2009 10:22 |
Lee,
The moisture comes right out of the strips if you live in a dry environment. Even without baking mine will re-equilibrate in a week. With baking it just takes an extra minute or two. Since I'm a novice and it takes me a few weeks to get from soak to final planing there is not issue whatsoever. If it looks like you can't get to the strips you can pull them out and put them back in and also I've soaked for up to 9 days with no ill effects. The longer you soak the more friable the strips seem to get though. My usual routine is 4 days soaking and that seems to be the ideal time to get them nice a noodly for straightening. |
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canerodscom |
#8 | |||
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Posts: 2185 07/01/2009 00:19 Bamboo preacher |
Have any of you noticed a darkening of soaked strips that does not go away when the strips are dried?
HB |
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HERMES2069 |
Flame | #9 | ||
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Posts: 555 07/01/2009 06:05 |
I flame the culm with a torch. The strips are dark to begin with.
Phil |
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Lewis B |
#10 | |||
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Posts: 43 07/01/2009 06:11 |
Harry, I have some dark areas on this cane , I thought that I scorch then during straightening. Are you suggesting this might not be the case? Lewis
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canerodscom |
#11 | |||
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Posts: 2188 07/01/2009 08:55 Bamboo preacher |
Phil,
I was mostly thinking about light colored bamboo. Lewis, Those areas were likely toasted during straightening, as you suggest. Though I cannot say for certain, I suspect that already heat-treated bamboo, light in color, when soaked turns considerably darker and stays that way. Again, I'm not sure of that. But here's a recent experience. Several years ago I received some bamboo from John Bradford and Bob Radasch in Texas. They had built an oven for cooking a bale or two of bamboo all at one time. It was great stuff, but working nodes without scorching was a pain on already-cooked bamboo. So I soaked these strips for a day or two. And they came out CONSIDERABLY darker than they were originally. Not a problem, except Just curious if others have seen anything similar? Harry |
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WIHEXROD |
#12 | |||
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Posts: 205 07/01/2009 09:40 |
Harry,
You have to stop soaking them in the Cajun Coffee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Scott |
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fishbum |
#13 | |||
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Posts: 297 07/01/2009 09:47 |
canerodscom wrote:I had a similar experiance. I delaminated a hollow butt section with too much heat while getting a kink out of it. After making a new section I used the heat gun to finish delaminating the bad butt. It was plenty crooked after that! I scraped the old epoxy off, bound the strips and soaked for 8 days. After the 8 day soak, I straightend and re-bound the strips. 4 hours at 250 degrees done a good job of drying everything out. Glued up the strips and imediatly heat set the wet epoxy at 250 degrees for 1 hour. (the oven was already hot) This butt section is much darker than the the tip that would have been its mate or the new butt. Just a note, the epoxy is Nyatex and I have used 250 degrees before to set epoxy quickly without a noticable change in the color of the strips. fishbum |
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 nwdlj |
soaking in steam and ammonia fuming | #14 | ||
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Posts: 45 07/01/2009 12:07 |
I was investigating the ammonia fuming process to try and get the same color that Heddon and Granger rods have and ran across an old article or book describing
several methods of coloring woods from staining to fuming and it described their process as it was reported back then....(this is from memory and is correct
except maybe for time discrepancies)...basically, they took the strips and put them in a big drum, sealed it, filled it with water, then heated the water to
boiling that produced steam...they then drained the hot water off and filled the drum with anhydrous ammonia and left it for a period of 2 hours...they then
removed the ammonia vapors and then the strips, binding them and leaving them to dry straight...from that point, the description stops as it was about coloring
wood, not making rods, but it definitely looks like they weren't worried at all about the strips being soaked and evidently preferred it given the number
of fine rods that they produced. The heat, greater than 212 degrees of course, was said to heat treat the strips while the ammonia fuming was enhanced by the
increased moisture content of the strips. So maybe they got two birds with one stone, heat treating and colorizing at the same time in a controlled process.
The color change was reported to penetrate deeper into the wood than with stains or surface treatments and was very consistent, one of the reason that I wanted
to use it to get around the problem of different colors that I can get by flaming . Evidently the color change also depended on the presence of tannic acid as
they gave methods for adding it to woods that had none and consequently wouldn't be affected by the ammonia fumes...very interesting to see how much the
process was used around the turn of the century as the famous Stickney furniture was colored by this method and it was extensively used by the Arts and Crafts
Movement. It was also said that shaping after drying was best done by re-wetting the wood to a moisture content of 20% which would mean that soaking would be
desired...so I am going to try and set up the this process to see what comes of it as I have always loved the looks of Granger and Heddon rods...I'm also
hoping that shaping to final taper with straight strips might be easier with soaking and the consequent binding to help the strips be straight with less work
needed after the fact. I can't see Heddon or Granger devoting a lot of time to straightening strips as its a manual process that doesn't lend itself to
production levels which as Michael says that they produced the numbers of rods like grass means that they couldn't have done my sometimes hour plus of
straightening for each rod...I also think that I remember in the Colorado Cane book a description of their process for straightening that was a production
methods based for straightening and when I get home from work am going to look into both the Heddon and Granger book to see what has been written about
them...anyway, it was an interesting article and has made me decide to soak and develop a method of using it to make my sections...dj
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bbamboo |
#15 | |||
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Posts: 181 07/02/2009 13:47 |
Hi Harry
Just reading your post on working wet bamboo, Never had a problem with the colour Gary from the UK.
www.nichobamboorods.com
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Lewis B |
#16 | |||
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Posts: 50 07/04/2009 06:29 |
Harry, I just finished the tip section. After cleaning all the extra glue and lightly sanding, I noticed a darker area about mid way down the tip. It was not
consistant wit the nodes although nodes were darkened also. The cane hade a grey color to it on the pith side and as I planed it I noticed a much darker color
on the power fobers. Im afraid that it may have been mold . the setcion "feels" ok but this isnt going to be a blond rod as I hoped. Some replies
stated that they have never had a problem with the color, so Im not giving up on the soaking thing,but I`ll wait till I get some more bamboo that doesnt show
any odd colors before trying it again. Does anyone think I could lightly flame the section without it coming apart or should I live with it the way it is?
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canerodscom |
#17 | |||
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Posts: 2194 07/04/2009 08:22 Bamboo preacher |
If the section is already glued and sanded, you should not flame it. You'll burn the corners and/or it will delaminate. To color it, you can use Potassium
Permanganate. My friend Jeff Fultz sells a ready made cane browning PP kit.
Harry |
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bbamboo |
#18 | |||
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Posts: 185 07/04/2009 08:32 |
Yes Harry is right DONT flame
You will burn the blank and you will end up with a noddle Colour the blank with stains, pens take your pick. Gary
www.nichobamboorods.com
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Lewis B |
#19 | |||
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Posts: 51 07/04/2009 15:19 |
Ok. I`ll take flamming off the table. I can live with it the way it is. I was hoping for a blond rod but thats the way it goes sometimes. I split open the
other halve of the culm and it is moldy inside also. I can flame it before I do anything esle to it. You learn as you go! It sure helps to have fine folks like
yo`al to help me out. Thanks Lewis
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Canewrap |
Re: why not soak? | #20 | ||
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Posts: 112 07/04/2009 18:04 |
If its moldy inside I would not use it. Chances are there are some weak points being created by that mold. Are you doing any stress testing on the strips after
you split them out, so as to not have a rod with a serious weakness in it?
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