Questions to Muse... NOT Not Look Up

Damn fractal boundaries.

How about beeswax is good for wood and Bamboo no does no need bees.

I have Bamboo flooring which is a good looking replacement for wood. It could burn when catching fire from the fire place - so is wood.

Bees collect pollen but they create the wax however they see fit - its an animal product.

Well, beeswax burns as well. So there, with knobs on.

Agreed. In every point. But stated better than I could have done. GA to you.

Beeswax is the principal ingredient of Chap-stick, too. If bees ingest only vegetable stuff, do we then count their secretions as vegetable, animal, or mixed? No easy answer that I can see.

Similarly, bamboo is taxonomically a grass, but behaves largely like wood. "Thinking for myself", I wood go with would. Other flakes may differ.

Another bit of useless information:

Balsa is a 'hardwood'. The definition of a hardwood is that the tree it comes from is deciduous.

_{Does this mean that no posting on this thread could ever be 'off topic'?}

Sure is!

Then we have seawater and 'freshwater' (i.e., not-seawater). Go figure.

I know my earwax is animal, so I'd say beeswax is also animal.

I 'know' bamboo is a grass, but I think of the thick, hard version used for flooring as hardwood. The first time I walked on a bamboo floor I asked 'What kind of wood is this?' and the reply was 'bamboo', so since then I've considered it wood.

Bamboo flooring Is only hard because the bamboo fibre is bonded with resin.

Beeswax -Vegetable.. As bees are Insects consuming plant material . Bamboo is a GRASS. A huge variety of types, some can be used as a wood replacement but they lack the Physical structure needed to make wood ie.the length of fibers.

Bamboo is also a scaffold pole. _{This could go on as long as the infamous bath-breaking thread.}

So when exactly does Bamboo break and how does it compare to wood?

I have a bunch of Bamboo sticks in the shed . . .

Plenty of scope for experiments there, then. Just don't try making a longbow out of them.

Bamboo is of course very good for bows.
It is very good in tension, not so good in compression unless it is heat treated.
Del

(BTW. Don't mention ear wax... shhhhh)

WHAT? Speak up. I can't hear you. I got big globs of earwax in my ears.

Bamboo can be used in lieu of rebars in concrete, does this make bamboo a mineral?

Doesn't it rot in the concrete? Or the highly basic PH of the concrete eat the bamboo, and leave at best a softened shell of bamboo where you most want a solid rod? I've never heard of bamboo used as rebar.

Korea and other Asian countries have a very unique use for bamboo associated with controlling and preventing bad social behavior as well as crime .

I have often thought that the USA would benefit from adopting bamboo usage patterned after the Asian example.

There is a breed of Bamboo which grows in Guam (Probably other Pacific Islands, as well, but I only know Guam cause I lived there for two years, and built furniture with it.) that is up to 100 feet tall, up to 8 inches in diameter, and can be nailed, screwed, glued, and tied together (probably some other way of fastening it I didn't think of, though I did use bamboo pegs to hold two pieces together sometimes) and is so strong I built beds, chairs , couches (sling style, with fabric stretched between runners) with it, as well as lamps, planters, and about anything else I could think of. I was bamboo rich and money poor, you might say, and the stuff was a natural, and free everywhere. I could cut down two "trees" and drag them out of the jungle, one over each shoulder, then cut them down to 8 or 10 foot lengths, load them into my car (Sticking out the windows they made a weird whistling sound all the way home. Got a lot of cool looks that way.) and get a whole roomful of furniture out of them. Biggest problem I had was cooking the beetles out to them before they bored their way out, and broke my furniture.

I'd call it wood. Try building stable, reliable furniture out of grass! Pay up your health insurance before you do, though.

Making all that bamboo stuff sounds a lot of fun .
I hate bugs in wood (shudder).
I once had a longbow explode 'cos of a bug hole in the sapwood, and in some books you'll read that bugs don't attack Yew 'cos its toxic. Of course the bugs didn't know 'cos they can't read!

Del

My current understanding is:

Beeswax is "gathered" from plants and does not contain cholesterol. I consider it plant derived.

Bamboo is a type of grass that has woodlike properties. There are hardwoods, softwoods, and bamboo. While it can be used like wood in many applications, I always think of bamboo as a unique material.

Sorry, NO!, beeswax is secreted by the bees from glands in their bodies. It is about as much plant-derived as saying that since cows eat grass and corn, then milk and steak are vegetables.

The bees gather nectar and pollen, from which they produce honey - that might be more open to debate, because they somehow "digest" the plant products they collect to make the honey. I would still consider honey an animal product because it is not just "boiled down" the way maple syrup is from maple tree sap, but processed by the bees' bodies to produce the honey.

Bamboo is a weed! Or least it seems to grow like one. I've eaten their sprouts but I can't say that I like them very much. It could be a grass. I believe I've heard of walnut referred to as a grass by several wood workers. We need a biologist here!

Beeswax? Well since bees only eat pollen and because they can't poop, I would have to surmise that the wax is a component of the pollen. Therefore, I would classify it as vegetable.

"....Well since bees only eat pollen and because they can't poop...."

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Say WHAT? Bees can't poop? Bees Can't Poop!? BEES CAN'T POOP!?!

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No way. That's crazy. Even weirdly adapted teenage girls eventually can't hold it any longer and poop.

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The bees are just being b-shy, and holding it it. They've got your fooled. Look more closely!

Even the vegetarians develop fatty tissue, but it can't be considered a "vegetable lard".

Regarding bamboo, I'm not sure, there are other "real woods" that crack when you nail them...

I;m not sure about the insects flying around the UK but over here in the civilized world of North America our bees are not vegetables

Aren't they? Oh.

Beeswax is vegetable. It's made of pollen, is it not? While the bee may bee considered animal, the byproduct of bees is veggie.

Bamboo is wood. Just because it is. People make houses and rafts out of it, don't they?

I think it's past time for me to be going to work and I don't feel even a slight tinge of guilt while frittering away my time conversing with someone half a world away about beeswax.

I think bees wax is an animal byproduct that can be eaten. Not a vegetable. I think bamboo is tree bark. Wood.

Rose

Since you are asking personal opinions,

Beeswax is a secretion of an insect, and I classify insect as animal, I cannot classify the secretion as vegetable since it is a product of an organism. In fact it is double processed, since the bee consumes honey to produce the wax, and Honey is already a product of the insect.

Bamboo is a species of evergreen, so by implication a "tree" and thus further implied as a "wood". LOL vegetable too, but you didnt ask that.

I believe that beeswax is secreted by bees and is not from bees assembling plant material into a wax. Bees are insects. Insects are part of the animal phylum, so beeswax is clearly animal.

Should bamboo be considered to be a wood is not as straight forward due to the ambiguous clasification of the term "wood". Wood nominally comes from trees. Bamboo is a grass. Wood is a common plant based building (not necessarily structural) material. Not all trees make building material grade wood. However, a tree's twigs and chips are used with glues and resins to make structural material often deemed to be wood. Bamboo is often used as a building material. Bamboo is also used as a structural building material. So I say that bamboo is a wood.

Another point that supports bamboo to be wood. Most of the woodwind family of musical instruments produce the sound vibrations from a reed made of bamboo.

It's mineral. If it were animal or vegetable it would grow, respire and reproduce, which it doesn't.

Thank you for your answer.

Why is there no cream in a cream cracker?

Why is Bombay Duck a fish?

If one is intoxicated by bamboo wine, is one then "bamboozled"?

Beeswax is an animal product but has no food value, so can be considered neither animal or vegetable, or both animal and vegetable....I think it largely depends on the context....Bamboo is a grass that has a fishing pole for a stem.....

I noticed today that our supermarket is selling toilet paper which claims to be made from bamboo, after reading the comments here I won't be trying it.

I shall do nothing of the kind.

Some funboy gave you a GA. Of course we need to help you keeping your nasty trousers on. I topped up your account with another OT (currently 6 vs 2)!

This is at my own descretion and I can revoke any time (or until this "bathbreaking" thread is closed).

Maybe some more want to tune in?

PS hope you get well soon! Quit smoking!

I gave you a GA, both because I appreciate the warning about a product of which I hadn't heard, and cause the nitwit that marked you OT makes me think you deserve an offset with greater positive value.

So there!

And you quite possibly saved me a painful mistake, some morning at 3 am, when I have to make an emergency run to save me from one.

Toilet paper is also made from Pine Trees.

So do you prefer pine cones up yours?

OUCH! Nope!!

Well Bamboo is a grass and beeswax is a secretion by an insect so I don't know if that makes it animal or vegetable or insectable! :-)

Very deep pussy. Sorry lacking punctuation again. Very deep, pussy.

Beeswax is, of course, none of yours.

Bamboo is grass that doesn't make Cheech or Chong happy. So I guess it's wooden.

Really ? I thought tai-sticks were rolled in bamboo. I know, you won't smoke the wrapping pad, but at least give bamboo part of the credit for keeping cheech and chong happy.

Well Del, now that you have nearly 60 responses, what's your conclusion?

Well, I know Boo is technically a grass, but behaviourally I'm happy to consider it a wood. I s'pose bees wax must be animal in the same way as our earwax is presumably animal. I was just interested in how others saw it.

I tend to only use animal or vegetable products on my bows, except the string material is a modern man made product of mineral origing. The steel points on the arrows are of course mineral. S'pose I do use modern glues too, but in reality animal hide glue is just as good or better than the modern ones, just less convenient to use.
Del

HUH?

LET'S BAN ALL ANONYMOUS POSTERS!

Hear! hear!

Whadda ya mean
"HUH"?

The thread is about musing on the question, which is exactly what that post does!
You wanna be anonymous and say 'HUH' you start your owm thread about the meaning of 'HUH'
Eh?

In fact it's the bestimost post so far in my cattly opinion

Del

Nice post... I normally don't like long answers.
I particularly like the "all models are wrong, but some are useful" I may have to borrow that one.
Del
(Canf Ib take thebs keys oub of by moufth now?)

Thank you Del, I really like your original question.

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I especially like that you made it very clear that while there might not be a 'right' answer, googling it would lead to a wrong answer. It was a very straight forward and successful way to get people to think for themselves and express their own insights....something that is too rare today.

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'Long' is not one of the traits I value in an answer either. Concision is not yet one of my proficiencies, but I'm working on it.

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....I'm fine with keys coming out of mouths....so long as they haven't been reclassified as 'animal'.

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So, this is a little tangential but still related: What kind of finish do you apply to your bows? Do you use shelac? It came to mind because shelac is one of those odd substances...I'm not sure if I consider it more mineral or more animal. I'm really more curious about what type of finish you think offers good performance on a piece that gets flexed and exposed somewhat, but allows appreciation of natural wood.

I'm worried more about those who would put their keys in their mouths in the first place. You might not know where those keys have been lately.

I've seen people dig in their ears with their keys.

I use a few coats of Danish Oil followed by a final couple of beeswax polish.
Ah yes Shellac, from a beetle I believe... Now if you could cross breed them beetles with bees... oh boy you'd get some great polish
Del

Yeah, from a beetle called a lac bug...but the only one that the secretes the resin is the female: the 'she-lac', though I'm not really sure if the etymology is entomological.

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I've used tung oil on some giant bamboo I made didgeridoos with. Do you know if Danish oil is similar. The few Danes I know are pretty exemplary, perhaps their oil is too?

In the U.S., Watco is a common brand of Danish oil. I'm not sure, but I think it is thinner than tung oil. I've used it on many projects, often with a top coat of carnauba wax (Minwax being one brand.)

Nice commentary on how we perceive things. I find it interesting that as I age I tend to simplify my use of words, and yet I crave more knowledge than when I was younger.

It would seem that the use of that "shorthand" is used quite often in the media with "sound bites". Easy to visualize but often very wrong!

_{(Dell please leave the keys on the desk)}

Very well put, very erudite. I appreciate this kind of thinking, the willingness to take some of our "conceptions" (concepts put into cerebral practice) and look at them in detail with and eye to seeing their flaws, but without the concomitant desire to often seen to tear them down, because "surely there must be something better, though I (by implication, at least) haven't a clue what to replace the conception with). I also appreciate the clarity with which you explained your thinking, such that we can get on the same page.

I see in THIS flawed practice of "I know enough about it to know I don't need to know more, because I can stick it in THIS box over here" the flip side, which you've demonstrated here, that, if I DO learn more about it, I won't know enough to stick it in a box any longer. And too many of us are scared of that.

Someone observed recently that only those who know little are convinced they are experts on any given subject, but that the more someone learns about the subject, if they are honest and objective about their own knowledge, the less they feel they know about it.

Empirical tests cited in that discourse (I wish I could remember where it was. Perhaps someone here knows and can provide a link.) showed that it didn't even take "honest and objective" but that in casual conversation the most knowledgeable on any given subject were almost universally likely, absent any pronounced arrogance on their own ( i.e., the speaker's) part about their own qualities, to denigrate their own level of knowledge on a subject, and only when pressed to provide the name of someone they thought more knowledgeable, in effect saying, "The more I learn, the more I see we collectively know little about (their own knowledge specialty)".

Interesting phenomenon. Know less, claim more knowledge. Know more, claim less knowledge. Only to the outside observer, then, does true expertise become apparent.

Hence there is a great deal of truth to my Biblical injunction to "let another praise thee, and not thine own lips."

Thank you for a great reminder off a favorite subject.

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'Dunning-Kruger effect'. Very interesting stuff. It can be a great conversation starter or conversation stopping insinuation.... Useful all the way around.

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I find its use as fodder in an argument ironic to the point of laughter since if you are suggesting someone is low functioning because they see others as low functioning, you have made yourself vulnerable to the same classification. That hasn't always kept me from wielding the knowledge abrasively though.

@ Micah.
Yup "Experts" personally I disslike the term. Especially if people say to me... Hey you're an expert on Bows...
I'll say, "No, I know a good bit about 'em "
If I have to define 'expert' I think it's the person who can put right their own mistakes.
Del

That's a nice aphorism.

"If I have to define 'expert' I think it's the person who can put right their own mistakes."

Works for me. And I've got a lot of 'em to practice "putting them right" on.

So maybe someday I'll be an expert at something? One can but hope.

or...we could all "mind our own beeswax", and not be "bamboozled" by the question. _{Just couldn't resist that.}

I like to use Boiled Linseed Oil on some wooden things, and even some metal things!

Bamboo and wood are both plants. They are cellulose in makeup.

Isn't Bamboo over the top grass?