Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Arrows => Topic started by: autologus on December 17, 2013, 10:30:03 am
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I finally got around to cutting some river cane this weekend and was wondering how long you guys usually let the stuff dry before working it? I am in no hurry but was just wondering.
Grady
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I would give it a couple of months Grady. Stuff is basically grass so all you need to do is get 'em dry. You can let nature take it's course or you can speed things up a bit by force drying. I'd at least give 'em a couple of weeks to lose some initial moisture and play around with drying a few quickly. Rind off helps to dry faster, drilling out the sulcus area at each node allows for faster drying also. Experiment a little to get the hang of things...........Art
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What artcher said...........but be careful force drying.
I've cut some and started heat straighting too soon and the cane split between the nodes. This time of year in my basement shop the RH is always around 30-40% so I've found it dries enough to do some hand straighting in about two/three weeks. I usually work them every couple days straighting them until there dry enough to use heat. There's lots of past posts discussing but it all depends on RH.
Nothing prettier than a dozen of straight cane shafts laying side by side. :)
DBar
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In the Summer I let them dry for about 2 months in the Sun. I like to turn them every few days until the turn a nice golden brown. Winter is going to take a lot longer. One trick I learned for speeding up drying is to leave the leaves on until they turn brown and dry up. They will suck moisture out the cane in an effort to stay alive. I have done it both ways and the ones that I left the leaves on dried much faster.
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Thanks for all the advice, I have made arrows from bamboo but would like to try some native materials.
Grady
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I usually dry rivercane alongside my osage staves and give them both the same amount of time. I peel the rind off if drying the cane next to roughed out bows.
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Reason you don't want to heat up these green shafts is steam build-up inside the innernodes. If you try, the steam build-up will split wide open the shaft. But like I mentioned early, you can take a 1/32" bit, and drilling towards the nock end, at an angle, in the sulcus/dimple area to relieve steam build-up. You can fill that hole in later with super glue and dust........Art
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Boy ....your wasting a lot of time Jack...crafty...........
Dbar
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or you can punch holes in all the nodes with some thin 16 ga steel wire in a drill, throw them in the oven at 250 until golden brown. For some reason, I have found such shafts to be MUCH tougher than naturally cured. I think it is due to the tempering effect of the heat.
River cane will combust at a fairly low temperature, roughly 300 degrees if heated for a long time. Its not a pretty sight.
Anyway, I just set rivercane in the corner of my garage to dry for about a month or so, then scrape it.