Making bulletproof wood

Back in 2020, I read a paper that claimed that bulletproof wood might be possible. The moment that I saw this, I felt that I had to test it myself and I spent the next 3 years working on it.

References:

CodeBullet: @CodeBullet

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[timothygregg]

Hey Nile! I used to work as a Materials Engineer in body armor manufacturing, and what you've experimentally found are some of the core principles of the materials science behind high-performance ballistic armor! Towards the end you mention that you could likely make something half the thickness and still stop a 9mm; take a look at the construction of NIJ level II or level IIIA soft armors: what you'll find is that they are *remarkably* thin. Turns out, high tensile strength is pretty much the number one reason that poly-aramids (Kevlar and the like) are such great armor materials.

What I think your pressed-wood plates would serve a better function as is as an up-armor for level II or level IIIA soft armors. This is usually done with a ceramic plate that provides the compressive strength to the initial impact zone that the fibrous soft armor is able to absorb as tensile load, but the densified wood could serve as a great substitute! If you want to get really deep into the armor classification side of things, you can also take a look at "back-face deformation" tests that are done to classify/test armors.

Drop me an email if you'd like and I can answer any questions! I'm not in the armor space any more but I have a ton of knowledge built up from the time when I was, and I would love to put it to good use somewhere :P

Also someone pointed out I should have said "Level IIIA soft armor" not "Level III", thanks for the correction, I've edited above!

[chaschuky]

RIP the dream of Nigel owning a “nugsmasher pro” would’ve been a truly legendary piece of lab equipment.

[sljk]

4K Hydraulic Press-Nah
6K Candy Shaper - Take my money

[lewis-ukht]

What we learnt in this video:
- Wood can be bulletproof
- Nile is a scarily accurate with a gun

[HimanXK]

I love that we get sentences like "It hit me in the head and I was genuinely really surprised" in the classic Nile Red monotone.

[lewistaylor]

If you fancy revisiting this, try carrying out the first chemical wash step under vacuum. The wood contains lots of air, and the presence of the air within the cells prevents the chemicals penetrating through the whole cross section of the piece (thats why the centre looked dry). When pulling a vacuum, most of that air is removed. The vacuum can then be realased forcing the chemicals deep into the piece. In order to remove the chemicals, you can then place the treated piece under vacuum again to help draw out excess chemicals before washing. This is basically how they pressure treat timber with wood preservatives.

[CrimsonRedRoses]

I love how Nile always says "carefully" then goes on to swing away with an axe.

[JuilySlay]

Love how Evan (aka code bullet) just casually traveled halfway across the entire globe for this vid. Like the dude seriously went from Australia to Canada

[leojennings]

Nile: *spends $5000 on a press*
Also Nile: "WE GOT PINE BECAUSE IT WAS THE CHEAPEST"

[pace_]

He started this project almost 4 years ago! That's insane. People underestimate how long these chemistry videos take

[jimthesalad]

When he first hits it with his finger, the crushed wood has a nice resonance. This makes me wanna see someone make an instrument using this type of "hardened" wood

[tagwagley]

Things to consider for a future attempt (which I highly recommend you do):

1. Initial moisture content of the wood. (This can be quite inconsistent unless purchased from a mill that tests it.)
2. Cut of the wood: logs are cut differently and there are names for every kind of cut. Some are stronger than others. It might even be worth your time to try burled wood.
3. Type of wood: you went to a hardwood which is good, but consider using ironwood and desert mahogany. These are much more dense types of wood and as a result will provide a greater chance of success right from the get go.

[mercylessplayer]

Code Buullet doing literally anything besides being productive is hilarious to me, love the vibes of that man

[nexdemise]

So here's the thing. This is something you will see with weaves like carbon fiber or kevlar where a single layer will splinter, a double perpendicular will hold. You could significantly improve this by using thinner pieces and just stacking a bunch of them together because the impact has to keep changing direction instead of just cleaving through lines that line up behind it.

So if you ever want to revisit this project, take a bunch of thin boards (the thinner the better, like you can break it by looking at it wrong thin), treat them all, stack them in your press going horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical, squish them all together, cook them, and try shooting it. Squish them all together to basically make them stick together on force alone. L3 plates are like 1.5 inch thick which is basically what you should be aiming for as the higher bound on thickness, and who knows, maybe it'll work.

Another thing you should do with the bigger blocks you've treated is to take a hammer and chisel and break one of them apart before crush/cook (or you can shoot it with your pellet gun to make a hole down) and see if it's actually wet inside, there's a lot of different non-water liquids that can still stay behind in wood and judging from the dark color you might've been pushing out resin especially in pine that's known for holding a lot of it and crackling in fire because of it. If that's the case you didn't really have treated wood, you just had a weird hotpocket of treated wood with filling of compressed wood.

[Mongaloose]

The real reason the test was performed in the forest was to show the trees just how strong their mutant friend became after Nile's experiments.

[CameronLarson]

It’s also worth noting that you shot the wood with a 9mm PCC witch has a significantly longer barrel than a handgun, meaning that it had a lot more energy than a handgun. You did better than you thought. 👍🏻

[spudhead]

You used a 9x19 carbine. The longer barrel will allow the bullet more velocity than a pistol, so the wood stopping it was even more impressive seeing as most armor ratings for 9x19 is based on hand-gun velocities.

[aaronalbertson]

"Taken months to find land that I could legally shoot at" Damn. That is a wild sentence to hear as an American lmao

[Maja-cwfr]

I just feel like I really have to let you know Nile, I barely understand anything from your videos, but I still love them all for some reason, I watch them all the time and I really hope you'll never stop making these!

[karet]

i like how his script always makes him sound like hes reading off a chemistry procedure paper
this will be the most thorough explanation of opening a box you will hear in your life