Topic: Planes

Hello,

I have never seen a Korean bowyer using a plane to flatten the surface of bamboo/horn. Not even the handles. Now do they get the components flat enough to glue together? Do they really need to be perfectly flat?


Thanks for your time.

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Re: Planes

Different Korean bowyers will vary a little, but they tend to do many things similarly.  The tools you will mostly see them use are saws, hand adzes, chisels, and various knives and scrapers.  The surfaces themselves are flattened with a variety of what I mentioned, along with the bowyer's skill and many years of experience.

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3 (edited by Pedro C 2017-03-03 03:42:23)

Re: Planes

Boiling and then bending the bamboo into a circle makes it flatter.
Now, I'm not sure of whether the outside or the pithy inside should be in the inside or outside of the bend. I suspect the outside of the bamboo should be on the outside (tension side) of the bend because otherwise the pithy stuff could break. But I'm not sure, you should look it up.

4 (edited by Blackrain 2017-03-10 18:54:32)

Re: Planes

Thanks, sirs. I have another question. Just how FLAT do the surfaces of the horn and the bamboo have to be, to achieve a bond that can withstand the stress of the draw? For instance, I was practicing scraping with two small pieces of wood, which you can think of as being like bamboo and horn. I cannot see any light between the sides of this little "bow" but there is a little wiggle room. If I glued together bow pieces like that, could I expect them to delaminate?


Also, when practicing on two other pieces, I tried making the "horn" piece concave, and the "bamboo" piece convex; a "female to male" type thing. Still, the pieces can wobble a bit even though you can't see light through the side.

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5 (edited by Pedro C 2017-03-11 01:48:18)

Re: Planes

Blackrain wrote:

Thanks, sirs. I have another question. Just how FLAT do the surfaces of the horn and the bamboo have to be, to achieve a bond that can withstand the stress of the draw? For instance, I was practicing scraping with two small pieces of wood, which you can think of as being like bamboo and horn. I cannot see any light between the sides of this little "bow" but there is a little wiggle room. If I glued together bow pieces like that, could I expect them to delaminate?


Also, when practicing on two other pieces, I tried making the "horn" piece concave, and the "bamboo" piece convex; a "female to male" type thing. Still, the pieces can wobble a bit even though you can't see light through the side.

You could try Adam Karpowicz's book on hornbow making.. there, the core is a bit rounded and the horn piece is concave. I guess they're fitted with heat somehow.