Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: sleek on August 21, 2021, 02:31:30 pm
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I mentioned this in a past thread, no clue where it is, so I'll start this one. Hair and horn are both the same material, so why not soak it in hide glue and give it a try?
I have spent the last 5 years growing my hair out for this very purpose. I've cut my pony tail off once, when it got down to my belt line. Now it's almost time to do the same again. That should give me enough to line the belly of a bow and get a horn like belly. I was hoping I'd be going grey by now as some grey streaks amid the brown would look cool.
I also grew my beard out and cut 5 inches off to use that as a test piece for glue adhesion. But, then I realized my hair brush accumulate s enough hair to test, and that's what I am doing today. I got a one inch wide by about 8 inches long strip of hair washed in dawn soap well and soaked in hide glue curing up. I'm hoping the glue will hold it together and stick to the hair well. I need to figure out some way to compress it to remove voids as it cures. maybe a vacuum sealed bag?
Anyways, I'll update this as it progresses.
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Recent research indicates that human hair bio-composites do indeed have remarkable physical properties.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0967391119872399?journalCode=ppca
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This I gotta see!
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Dude...do you want me to send you some water buffalo horn strips?!?
The glue won't stick well enough to make a composite out of it.
Hair is good in tension as the paper says but those bio-composites are using epoxy....hide glue is not the same thing at all. If you wanted to make something that might work you woul;d have to use epoxy or somehow liquify the hair then somehow get it all to form back into a 'chunk'.......Grozer does something weird with his bio-composite bow bellies...that might be where to start your search :)
But 5 years to wait to start making a bow...you could've let a hornbow cure for the full 3 years and spent your time tillering it by now :) :)
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Dude...do you want me to send you some water buffalo horn strips?!?
The glue won't stick well enough to make a composite out of it.
Hair is good in tension as the paper says but those bio-composites are using epoxy....hide glue is not the same thing at all. If you wanted to make something that might work you woul;d have to use epoxy or somehow liquify the hair then somehow get it all to form back into a 'chunk'.......Grozer does something weird with his bio-composite bow bellies...that might be where to start your search :)
But 5 years to wait to start making a bow...you could've let a hornbow cure for the full 3 years and spent your time tillering it by now :) :)
Well, I ain't got nothing against some horn strips haha
It's a curiosity thing to be honest. I don't know how well hide glue will work. One lady learned gorilla glue certainly will hahaha. But, if hide glue won't, I strongly suspect milk or egg glue might.
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Hide glue will favorably bind the hair fibers, due to the porosity of human hair.
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Hide glue will favorably bind the hair fibers, due to the porosity of human hair.
I hope so, if not, I'll use sulfuric acid to etch the hair for better binding.
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Good call. It may be possible to fuse the hairs together without glue.
https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1468151&dswid=fQCqXW9T
Quote from abstract:
"The project Kera-Plast aims to re-loop humans and nature by questioning the current systems and ethics through materiality. Human hair, currently considered as waste, functions as the base for the material exploration fabricated through thermo-compression molding. The flexible, short and opaque keratin-fibers get glued together with heat, pressure and water, acting as a plasticizer during the compression molding process. The results are stiff and remind on plastic due to shine and translucency."
^A lot of "Europeanisms" in the abstract, but it's readable. Seems the past couple of years have seen a booming interest in hair as a structural material. In keeping with the "greenization" of everything.
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I have a lot of thoughts on this…and I also realize that none of them are based enough in actual science to even mention. Digging the dedication and curiosity and can’t wait to see this progress.
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Perhaps related I recently read articles on the use of human hair to make bowstrings, as mentioned in older Norse sagas and other stories.
Apparently those who have tested this in modern times found that a human hair bow string was very strong but did not last very long.
I've wondered if the Native Americans ever used horse hair for bow strings, since they did use it for lariats and bindings of various sorts. So far I've not run across any mention of horse hair bowstrings. They seem to have stuck to more ancient methods and materials that pre date the introduction of the horse to the Americas by the Spanish.
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Right now the hair is in a vacuum bag setting up. Food savers are great! After a few hours I'll open it up to allow it to air dry.
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I remember the old thread for this!!! I’m real curious to see how it turns out!!
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Yo sleek…2 ?s
1. You know how to post photos on here to bring us along gor the ride, right?!
2. Is your screen name derived from a particular boat produced in the mid to late 90s?
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Oh yeah, sorry, posting photos is such a pain, but, I have been taking them. I'll post soon as I get them sorted, sized, and I got something other than a sticky hairball to show ya!
Nope, screen name is derived from when I was 17, I joined an MSN chat room called classic rock. Every name I picked was taken then the computer suggested SLEEKAEROSMITH and I though well damn, that's cool, so I been using that since 2001, it just naturally got shortened down to sleek. I sure miss chat rooms. Those were a blast.
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Yo sleek…2 ?s
1. You know how to post photos on here to bring us along gor the ride, right?!
2. Is your screen name derived from a particular boat produced in the mid to late 90s?
I think Sleek was produced in the mid 90s... '
Sleek~ missed you at MoJam bud!
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Yo sleek…2 ?s
1. You know how to post photos on here to bring us along gor the ride, right?!
2. Is your screen name derived from a particular boat produced in the mid to late 90s?
I think Sleek was produced in the mid 90s... '
Sleek~ missed you at MoJam bud!
I missed MOJAM entirely! Nope, I'm a product of 1983 :)
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Years ago I did experiments with horse hair as backing. Imbedded in hide glue, epoxi and some other I don't remember. Alternative as a cable backing. All failed terrible. The elastic modulus is too high (stretches too much). No remarkable strengthening, but a lot of additional mass.
IMO human hair has at least the elastic modulus of horse hair.
Well I understand, you want to use it as a facing not as backing.
Good luck!
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The idea is not original to me. Years ago someone mentioned it and I thought I'd give it a try. Last night I took the hair out of the vacuum bag. This morning it's a little harder and stiff. It's starting to curl a little. I didn't make it compact enough, I can see daylight through it. I'm thinking about heating it up and bonding it to a stick of osage. I'd do a bend test before and after to get better data.
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(-P
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Hide glue will favorably bind the hair fibers, due to the porosity of human hair.
I hope so, if not, I'll use sulfuric acid to etch the hair for better binding.
Be careful in treating hair with acid. The WW2 Japanese used a high explosive made from leather scraps mixed with human hair and dissolved by an acid. As this explosive aged it became highly unstable.
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Hide glue will favorably bind the hair fibers, due to the porosity of human hair.
I hope so, if not, I'll use sulfuric acid to etch the hair for better binding.
Be careful in treating hair with acid. The WW2 Japanese used a high explosive made from leather scraps mixed with human hair and dissolved by an acid. As this explosive aged it became highly unstable.
do you have any specific citations??? I definitely... dont want... uhhhh.... to make an explosive for fun.... >:D >:D >:D JK, but it honestly sounds interesting! (lol)
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do you have any specific citations??? I definitely... dont want... uhhhh.... to make an explosive for fun.... >:D >:D >:D JK, but it honestly sounds interesting! (lol)
Its a derivative of Picric Acid.
Used by many nations through WW1 but mainly replaced before WW2 due to instability. The Japanese developed a method of getting around instability issues and made the substance more powerful at the same time.
Plenty of information on the various forms and uses.
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Yall are going to have the AFT and homeland security on us if you keep it up. ;) :) :) :) :) Look forward to seeing how this turns out Sleek. :)
Pappy
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Ok, I just measured the thickness of the dried up hair strip. It's 1.64 to 1.45mm thick along its 7 inch length and 1 inch width. It shrunk some and became unstable, making waves along its length, like a ribbon that was laid down but not straightened taught. It certainly has an amount of stiffness too it, standing out like a diving board when held between two fingers. I've bent it around Ina compete U shape with no complaint from it, or any set, with it springing immediately back to flat like a spring when released. So far, on that front, so good. Also I pulled and pushed together a section and half an inch long with a decent amount of effort with no give. However.....
I did a little tugging on some of the individual strands and a few of them, without enough force to break the strands, come out of their glue matrix like a straw out of its paper wrapper. Others are so tangled in there they break without disbanding from the glue. I'm hoping the ones that came loose just didn't have a large enough surface area bonding them. Tomorrow I will cut a strip of osage to bond another sample of hair to in order to get any concrete numbers of increased compression abilities.
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I decided to see how it would break today and bent it to a crease. the tension side held, but the belly side broke from the glue and buckled. I would rather have had it snap or tear on the back. Maybe a better method of glue or a better glue is needed. I'm going to find a way to acid etch the hair and try again.
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It's the dried glue that is giving the strip its stiffness.
That is one of the reasons collagen glue is better than using modern epoxy to bond the horn to the belly of a hornbow. Its stiffness when dry is inbetween the wood core and the horn. The wood being the stiffest and gives the bow its shape. The old way of making mismatched grooves on the wood and horn to deliberately not mate up. These 'teeth' in to each surface are filled with glue. The dried glue then give a more subtle transistion to the horn/wood joint. The glue 'strips' acting like epoxy in a modern composite.
Glass strips are made by mildly pretensioning the raw glass then 'glued-up'. The ends are clamped and the clamps spread apart slightly. I've done this when making uni-directional carbon lams for my modern bows (spits). In any uni-directional composite you want the fibers parallel or else you have dead weight and overstrained areas.
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It's the dried glue that is giving the strip its stiffness.
That is one of the reasons collagen glue is better than using modern epoxy to bond the horn to the belly of a hornbow. Its stiffness when dry is inbetween the wood core and the horn. The wood being the stiffest and gives the bow its shape. The old way of making mismatched grooves on the wood and horn to deliberately not mate up. These 'teeth' in to each surface are filled with glue. The dried glue then give a more subtle transistion to the horn/wood joint. The glue 'strips' acting like epoxy in a modern composite.
Glass strips are made by mildly pretensioning the raw glass then 'glued-up'. The ends are clamped and the clamps spread apart slightly. I've done this when making uni-directional carbon lams for my modern bows (spits). In any uni-directional composite you want the fibers parallel or else you have dead weight and overstrained areas.
So, would you say the glue is doing fine with the hair based on what I've said so far? Realistically I'm playing with far tighter bends on this hair sample than any bow will experience, but also with far less compression than the belly will experience as well. Not certain if the hair will hold inside the glue matrix under pressure.
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Yo sleek…2 ?s
1. You know how to post photos on here to bring us along gor the ride, right?!
2. Is your screen name derived from a particular boat produced in the mid to late 90s?
I think Sleek was produced in the mid 90s... '
Sleek~ missed you at MoJam bud!
I missed MOJAM entirely! Nope, I'm a product of 1983 :)
The Sleek Bob and I are referring to was a whitewater kayak produced in the mid 90s that was no less than revolutionary…so that adds to the awesomeness of your internet screen name even if ya didn’t know it. It was the “Mullet” of kayaks, as it was all business up front and all party in the back. It had a high volume creeker front with a concave stern that could be sliced into current to “stern squirt” (stand the boat up straight up and down with the bow to the sky). Folks went from just running class V creeks to playing their way down them, and that Transition seemed to happen overnight once that boat hit the market. It may still be the coolest boat Eve produced, and it doesn’t get the credit it deserves rom a history-of-whitewater perspective, as it fundamentally transformed “hair boating” (at least in the southeast US.) My best friend still paddles one and is always looking for the impossible garage find.
Anyhoo…thought I’d shine some light on mine and Bob’s nebulous exchange.