Bamboo final planing issues

[Recidivist13]

Hi all, a mate and I are trying our hand at doing our first bamboo rod build. We have rough planed the strips and they were bound and heat treated at 350 degrees for 7 min each direction in a heat gun oven. When the strips were put in the final forms the bamboo seems to be splintering rather than taking shavings. We are using Stanley low angle block planes, Lie Nielsen low angle and even tried the 9 1/2 all to no avail. Blades are razor sharp with main bevel of 30 degrees and 40 degree finishing bevel. Any thoughts on what might be going on?

[holla999]

hi guys,
let the strips pick up some moisture!
about a week or two, and your planing goes much better.
succes, enyou your rodbuilding
Peter

[oddsnrods]

Firstly abort mission when splintering occurs. When you feel the plane dig, back out or you will probably wreck your strips. Your strips, as described, are not over heated- I cook mine at 375 4 mins each and turn for total of 8. You may well have 'kinky' nodes, which are problematic-where a scraper can be more useful than a plane; however I would say the plane angle/ adjustment may be mostly responsible. I have a Lie Neilson low angle plane and have yet to come to terms with it- finding that it digs and 'splinters'-I plan to give it more time to try and figure it out at some point. I have returned to my Stanley G12-020, similar to the 9 1/2 fitted with Hock blade, cutting angle 52 degrees.
Try planing another scrap strip, using the 9 1/2. Set for no cut (with narrow throat adjustment), then lower the blade until it cuts very slightly. It's the angle and the depth of the blade which give those desirable small thin curls, letting you know all is well. Again, it could be that the bamboo may be part of the problem. I have found those very kinky poles, which take forever to straighten, try to get their own back on final planing..

Moisture, or lack of it, can affect planing -however more during the dry winter months and not, I would say, to the extent of the OP's photos. I am working on a 12' spey now and find the 'bowed' strips of a few weeks ago are now more relaxed and straight and easier to work on. No need to wait a week or so to see if makes any difference, if possible, leave a test strip out on some grass overnight then see how it goes.

There is some more plane information here: viewtopic.php?f=66&p=911305&sid=106cd35 ... 04#p911305

Malcolm

[In the film]

Mentioned above but worth repeating is to narrow the throat opening—just enough for a thin shaving to pass through. I followed this advice given in a similar thread, and it has made a world of difference (of course, taking a less aggressive cut as well). I also use a low angle LN @ 30 deg.

Bill

[jim royston]

You're definitely trying to gobble up too much cane with the first passes. At worst, you get what you got, at best, with that blade setting, you're going to tear nodes out Those nice curlies are what you want.

[Recidivist13]

Thanks for the advice from all of you. I was wondering if they had got too dry, we followed the Cattanach book when he was saying to store in drying tube after first bake. I wasn’t present for the planing as I’m at sea, but I’ll pass suggestions on and see how next lot goes. I think we will try some more moisture on a test piece and see where it leads. Is there too much seasoning bamboo can have? Theses culms were split and stored about 7 years ago ( it took a while to get the courage to start )

[Recidivist13]

Oh, I’m in Australia too, so it is Winter, but temps not really cold like you guys have.

[bluesjay]

Hi Guys, I too see a plane 'set up' problem. Throat, angles; both sharpening and parallel, and sharpness all may be conspiring against a 'curl.' If I saw one splinter coming off my plane that looks like some of those I'd STOP, and sharpen/adjust. Use a micrometer on your cuttings. Measure a cut from each side of the throat: both sides should cut equally.

Jay Edwards

[PlaneOldMike]

Just a small FYI.

It has taken me the better part of 2 years to become accurate setting up my planes to take equal and clean curls.

Advice I can give is to make sure to always finish your blade depth adjustment in an outward, as to take up any play/slack . What I do to set blade and throat is retract the blade until it doesn’t cut. Then slowly pull the plane along the bamboo while extending the blade in small turns ( I do around 1/ 16 turn per pull) until you just barley feel it catching. Then close the throat until there is a crack of light shining through. Look down the sole to verify blade skew and squareness is good. Then try to take a curl. Small adjustments make big changes in regards to blade depth/extrusion. So take your time when setting up. Once you get it dials in, don’t change things while it’s apart and you are sharpening. It will make it that much easier to get back to shaving boo.

Have fun.

[Recidivist13]

Thanks Mike and everyone, advice has been passed on and we’ll see where it leads. Didn’t have too many issues getting it rough shaped, issues have occurred post heat treatment, but we will look at plane setup to refine our techniques. This first one was always going to be a learning curve, so thank you for taking the time to post suggestions

[henkverhaar]

Hi all, a mate and I are trying our hand at doing our first bamboo rod build. We have rough planed the strips and they were bound and heat treated at 350 degrees for 7 min each direction in a heat gun oven. When the strips were put in the final forms the bamboo seems to be splintering rather than taking shavings. We are using Stanley low angle block planes, Lie Nielsen low angle and even tried the 9 1/2 all to no avail. Blades are razor sharp with main bevel of 30 degrees and 40 degree finishing bevel. Any thoughts on what might be going on?

My experience is that bamboo 'splinters' rather than shaves if heated too much (e.g. the very dark flamed bamboo I recently used for a flamed rod. Not unusable, but not as 'effortless' as normally treated bamboo. It also results in having to be more careful with the nodes.
A 30 degree bevel in a low angle block plane results in a planing angle of 42 degrees. That's not enough, at least not in, and with, my experience, especially not with uncooperative bamboo. I do all my planing with at least 50 degrees - sometimes more. Both on my rough taper plane (a normal 20 degree bed block plane with a blade bevel of 30 degrees) and final planing (a low angle plane with a blade bevel of 42 degrees).

[henkverhaar]

You're definitely trying to gobble up too much cane with the first passes. At worst, you get what you got, at best, with that blade setting, you're going to tear nodes out Those nice curlies are what you want.

I tend to disagree. I do most of my rough taper planing (untapered tempered triangular strips) taking shavings that are as thick as those. Once you get in the neighbourhood of final dimensions watch the nodes carefully for breakout; any uncooperative node, try planing in the other direction - that will usually (97 out of 100 times?) take care of that - mark those nodes on the recalcitrant side, so you will remember when final planing...

As said, use steep planing angles, and make very sure that your blades are sharp. Like, really sharp. And as has been said, reducing mouth dimension also helps.

[Recidivist13]

Hi gents, passed on all the advise to my mate ashore. Here is the response
“ Re sharpened plane to have a 1.5mm bevel at 40’ and reset it super fine. I measured the blade to be 0.0003 “ protruding. Super fine shavings. Got a new piece of treated butt cane. It is amazing how hollow it is, it has significantly shrunk since heat treatment. Tried it on non heat treated cane, planed so easy and even. I am going to continue with the heat treated ones. I don’t believe it is plane sharpness or setting. The treated cane is so hard and dense. It will take ages to get it down to a full shaving.

[oddsnrods]

I would suggest some reading regarding effects of heat treating, searching this forum. In my experience bamboo does not significantly shrink on treating, especially with the heat time previously mentioned by OP. With ambient moisture, it bounces back again after a short while in any case. Were the bamboo to darken (inside) from high and long temperature, that would be another matter, even then significant shrinking would not be noticed, however the hardness of planing would be.
For final planing, many smaller shavings demonstrate the blade is cutting, then coming back out again. Ideally, if you can for the most part, manage one slow longer full section length continual pass, pushing the plane 'along' rather than 'down', thinner and longer shavings will demonstrate that the strips are not over cooked plus the plane angle and settings are just right.

Malcolm

[In the film]

Hi,

What type of bamboo are you using? How and where is temp (350F) being measured on the heat gun oven?

Bill

[Recidivist13]

Tonkin cane was used, there’s pretty much only one supplier of cane in Australia which is the one all the rod builders here use. Temps were measured at spots along the oven with a temp probe. We have since up graded the thermometers.

[Recidivist13]

Looks like it’s all coming together, the butt section is planed, moving on to tips tomorrow

[PlaneOldMike]

Well done! Good to see you sorted it out.

It’s quite a satisfying feeling guiding blade through cane...no?

[bluesjay]

Hi Guys, Ahhhhh, that looks comfortable!

Jay Edwards

[Recidivist13]

Thanks for everyone’s advice, got here in the end
Tips all bound up ready for gluing when I’m back