Bamboo Tips - Tips Area
Heat Treating - Reasons

< Home < Tips Area < Heat Treating < Reasons

At a recent event CRR had an information table for bamboo rod making. Probably the least clear answer to a question was: why do we heat treat.

In one sentence, why do we heat treat?

Not looking for a discussion or preferences in methods, just describe why we heat treat.  (Lowell Davis)

Simple answer: We heat treat bamboo to temper it.

Good enough?  (Jeff Fultz)

As I understand it, we heat treat not only as a preventive to taking sets, but to stiffen and quicken (in respect to action) the bamboo by driving off moisture (and other compounds), thereby altering the molecular structure in a more or less permanent way.  (Bob Brockett)

Heat treating causes permanent changes at a cellular level that increases the performance of the bamboo.

Good enough?  (Larry Lohkamp)

Because I spent so much time getting an oven to work right that I refuse not to use it!  (Joe Arguello)

I like Joe's reason.  (Mark Wendt)

I heat treat 'cause I've got an oven and I'm going to use it. Tradition says we should heat treat but as a guy I worked for years ago said "tradition is no excuse."  (Don Anderson)

Another reason for you to heat treat in your neck of the woods, is that it stops ya freezin your butt off.  (Keith Paskin)

Make a rod without heat treating. Not from a culm stored in a hot southwestern attic. One from the garage in central Missouri, or the south. That ought to explain everything verrrry clear!  (David Dziadosz)