‘Learning bamboo’ is an invitation to come along as I learn to build bamboo fly rods from master craftsman Glenn Brackett. To those who love fly fishing Glenn is widely known as one of the best fly rod builders in the world and I have been given a unique opportunity to learn this craft directly under his tutelage. I have many years experience in woodwork and craft but learning bamboo and utilizing this material to build a fine tool such as a bamboo rod is a remarkable challenge. Glenn is a key member of the Sweetgrass Rods team of crafters known as the ‘Boo Boys’ based in Twin Bridges, MT. One of their main goals is to share and teach others all they know about their craft. You can check out their website here .. http://www.sweetgrassrods.com/
Back in September Glenn stepped me through the process from selecting bamboo poles and splitting them, flattening nodes, initial milling of the slats to heat treating the milled slats and then re-introducing moisture into them in a closet humidifier.
I hope you enjoy coming along on this process, and remember, I am just learning this stuff so be patient and realize my explanations will be from a green apprentice’s perspective. For insight into bamboo and it’s inherent quality as fly rod stock check out this documentary film .. http://www.troutgrass.com
Here goes with the process I’ve been involved in to this point. If you check the link to the above film you can see Glenn splitting the bamboo pole on clip #3 in the ’screening room’ tab .. this is where I stepped into the process of crafting a rod. The 12′ poles of Tonkin bamboo which are used by the ‘Boo Boys’ have been hand-selected in China’s Guangdong Province by Glenn and have travelled over 10,000 miles to Twin Bridges, MT where this grass becomes a fly rod.
After selecting three 12′ poles from the inventory, I chopped them each into 6′ lengths and then split them with a ‘pie cutter’ chisel into about 8 slats each. After this, I had approximately 50 slats of bamboo 6′ long and about 1/2″ wide. The nodes were flattened by sanding and the slats were ready for the initial machining process. The cutterhead is exposed in one picture to show how wider slats are ‘gang cut’ to produce two triangular shaped slats.
Once the slats have been shaped into triangles they are heat treated in a specialized oven and monitored closely by Glenn. The smell of bamboo being baked is unmistakable, unlike any other that I know .. although near the end of the heating process it begins to smell like dry straw or hay .. it reminds me of Grandpa’s hayloft on a warm summer day!
The heated slats are taken from the oven and submerged in water to soak for several minutes. The heat process accomplishes at least two objectives as I understand, it deepens the color of the bamboo and also makes the bamboo more rigid. After they are soaked the slats are placed in a humidified closet where they are kept until it is time to create exact tapered strips during the finish milling process.
The final steps of machining involve very close tolerances at which time Glenn measures the apex and width of the tapered triangular strips at indexed points with a micrometer. The final passes through the cutterheads may be as small as a thousandth of an inch. The final pass on the ‘pent’ or 5-sided rod which we were milling in these pictures required a cut of 4 thousandths. (two thousandths off two sides of the triangle, the outer natural enamel of the bamboo is left intact until it is time to scrape and sand the glued rod sections) Notice how small the tip end strips have become in comparison to a pencil and remember each of these toothpick-sized tapered triangles is milled at 73.5 degrees. Bamboo is an incredible material and I am amazed how it can be machined so small with such precision and not blow apart.
Once the strips have been machined into very precise tapered triangles it is time to glue and bind them with string. You have probably noticed that each strip is color-coded which is done before the bamboo pole is initially split with the pie cutter chisel. The color code enables the crafter to keep track of the individual slats which is critical because of node spacing in the finished rod (nodes must be staggered or the rod will have weak points which might fracture)
The strips are arranged according to color code using another pie cutter shaped tin to hold them in place while they are taped. After the rod is taped together dry, the tape is split and the pieces are laid open and glued. The strips are then bound in a Garrison binder and they uniformly nest into one another. After they are bound with string, final straightening is done by slightly twisting or bending the glued-up rod before the glue begins to dry. The straight rod sections are then hung vertically and allowed to cure for several weeks before the scraping and sanding process begins.
After curing for several weeks the string binding is removed and the residual glue and enamel of the bamboo is carefully removed. The precise process of machining the bamboo has left the outer-most or power fibers of the bamboo intact which produces a consistent and long-lasting structure for a great rod. At this point the six-foot long sections of the rod have a mirror-like sheen and are ready to be cut to appropriate lengths before the ferrules, reel seat, guides, tip-top and handle are added.
