Stripping rind off boo?

[Schmidtster]

hey guys I have just come across something I'm glad I did, but still dont quite understand it haha. I heard that your supposed to strip the green rind off the bamboo till the back looks like the flattened belly but leave the nodes alone. My question is do you have to? And what's the best way to go about scrapping it off?

[DVSHUNTER]

You don't ha e to at all. I do on mine because I like the look. I used a scraper and worked gently and finished with sandpaper. If you go slow you will see the rind that you are talking about.

[Roy from Pa]

You don't have to strip off the rind at all, but if you leave the rind on it will not take any kind of stain. If you do strip off the rind, be very careful doing it. You can use a scraper but if you get careless and nick down into the power fibers then the boo could splinter up on you, which is a common problem with boo. Safest way is to sand off the rind with 220 paper, it takes longer than using a scraper but still you could do the entire rind removal in about a half hour or less. All you want to do is just barely remove the rind, you can and should leave little streaks of the rind here and there and then hit it with 320 paper. It is easy to see when the rind is coming off as the boo will turn a real light color. Some guys even leave little streaks of rind on so when it's stained it gives the back of the bow a neat kinda tiger stripe appearance. On the nodes there is a little rough curled edge that sticks up, just barely take off the rough edge.

[macbow]

Like DVS said you,don't have too. If you want to stain it then yes it is better.
It is not  making it like the flat part. I mostly use a palm sander to work on mine now. You don't sand through the fibers .
If you look at the end of the bamboo you'll see just below the rind all the fibers. Below the fibers is a more pithy area which is what gets ground off to make the flattened area.

[macbow]

Looks like Roy and I were typing at the same time.

If yours is green , is it still fresh? Did you harvest it?
By the time I get the bamboo it is aged and more yellow.

[Roy from Pa]

Mac I used to use a palm sander with 220 grit paper also to remove the rind, but the palm sander always put little tiny circular swirl marks in the boo which I then had to hand sand out with 320 and that caused me to get a little deeper than I wanted too. What grit do you use? Maybe if I went to 320 at the start I could eliminate the swirl marks.

[Schmidtster]

Yeah it is more of a yellow colour. I didnt harvest I bought it not sure why I said green... oh well you guys knew what I was getting at and gave me the exact answers I was looking for thanks to all of you. I think I will go the slow and easy sandpaper route, that way there is less chance of me messing it up, I like the look of it scraped off as well but think I'll leave it its natural colour to contrast the Ipe. I'm slowly learning to SLOW DOWN!!!! If this one is successfull and shoots as well as I've heard Ipe and Boo shoots the NEXT ONE will get some stain and stripes.

[Roy from Pa]

Cool, sand the rind off up and down the limbs length wise, and be careful when ya get close to the nodes.

[macbow]

Roy, I've been using 240. Not too much of a pattern. I keep it moving length wise.

[Roy from Pa]

Ok Mac, maybe I'll try 320 next time, or just follow the advice I gave to Schmidster, LOL. Thanks.. Roy

[D]

I'm real sketchy about sanding boo.  Makes me nervous.  I tried something the other day and it worked really good.  I did sand down the boo some but not a whole lot.  I took it and painted it a solid color...I used red.  Then took some gel stain like stuff and brushed four or five coats of it on.  It gave it a nice rich color actually.