YOLO! - FlyBillz' First Bamboo Build

Mike Monsos said:
While watching this is like watching paint dry it's a big part of bamboo rod making. The bamboo is a very hard material to plane because of the silica embedded in the fibers. The iron takes a real beating so sharpening is something you will learn to do and enjoy knowing that nice clean curls will result from a fine edge.

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Can I bring my kitchen knives over? 😄
 
Mike, has anyone made a tool to hold a router that would slide along the forms and remove most of the material in a single pass?
Also about the planning forms, are they a set with one for the top and one for the but section? Or do you have to adjust the forms for each rod section? For hollow built rods, do you remove the inside sections after the final taper is planned? As you might surmise, I've been thinking about boo spey rods as of late.
 
Had another session with Mike today, rough planing the pieces and learning how to use the planes.. I should be able to finish the rough planing when we meet later this week!

I love these tasks as they let me focus on the build and slow down as I focus on the process!

Only took one picture.
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We also cast a couple of MIkes rods to start the process of what taper I'll end up with and set the planing form to what works best for me and my casting style! Cheers!
 
I'm not aware of a router based tool to use on the metal forms. Routers are annoyingly loud in my opinion. There is one that is called a Medved beveler that I made a copy of but I didn't have much success using it so I went with a Baginski. There are powered bevelers that can take off a lot of material in one pass but normally you are looking at about $1K+ to buy one of those. The Baginski is the economy route for about $150 total.

The planing forms have a deep v groove on one side and a shallow grove on the opposite side. You set the form for the base section in the deep side and the tip in the shallow side. You have to set the form to the taper for each section.

For hollow built rods you plane your strips to the final taper then turn the pith apex up and remove the material. When you get to the ferrule you do not hollow under it on either side. For spey rods most makers use splice joints.
 
I was fortunate enough to visit Glen Bracket at Sweetgrass rods this summer. What a great guy who took the time to come down to his shop and walk me and my better half through all the steps they take to create a bamboo blank. I forget the exact words he used but he described their rods as production rods. I believe this is the same as Winston and their history to some point. They had splitting technics and mechanical planing techices that made the process faster and more efficient. I would not say that the process was "Fast" and a lot of work went into each blank. I had along with me a rod from RK Bolt and Chris Raine and he commented on how they hand planed each of their rods from a single piece of bamboo. As a newbie too bamboo that is trying to check some stuff, old and new, out I appreciate the demonstrations of both production and had planed, like this threads example.

Russell
 
Russell said:
I was fortunate enough to visit Glen Bracket at Sweetgrass rods this summer. What a great guy who took the time to come down to his shop and walk me and my better half through all the steps they take to create a bamboo blank. I forget the exact words he used but he described their rods as production rods. I believe this is the same as Winston and their history to some point. They had splitting technics and mechanical planing techices that made the process faster and more efficient. I would not say that the process was "Fast" and a lot of work went into each blank. I had along with me a rod from RK Bolt and Chris Raine and he commented on how they hand planed each of their rods from a single piece of bamboo. As a newbie too bamboo that is trying to check some stuff, old and new, out I appreciate the demonstrations of both production and had planed, like this threads example.

Russell
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I did a 3 hour tour with the Sweetgrass guys years ago with OMJ. Glen wasn't there, but it really got me hooked on bamboo! It was just after they had left Winston, well a few years after I think!

I still have a piece of a blank that didn't make the cut, so to speak! Mike, I'll show it to you when I find it!
 
"I still have a piece of a blank that didn't make the cut, so to speak! Mike, I'll show it to you when I find it!"

You need to find that and make a color stick for testing thread wrap colors. SparVar has a real impact on what the thread looks like after the finish coats. Many times, it's nowhere near the color you see on the spool. Most times the lighter shades become somewhat transparent.

Mike
 
Shavings from today, and nowhere near all of them! Going to make some firestarters in an egg carton with them! 😆 20260331_214310.jpg
Just to give an idea of how much bamboo is removed. Lots more to go, especially for the tip sections!
 
I thought I'd add a short clip of the final stages of rough planing the strips to a level edge. If you listen closely you will hear the plane skip in a number of spots as it is pushed down the length of the strip. This is caused by high and low spots after initial splitting. As I continue you will hear a nice even cut the length of the strip letting me know that the strip has been evened out surface wise. After this is completed we will set the forms to a chosen taper and begin to plane to final taper. To give you a idea of how small the tip strip will need to be planed to I added a picture of a finished strip that didn't make the final test on a prior rod.



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I'll describe the planing forms and how they are to be able to create such small strips necessary for the tip section. The forms are 60" long, two steel bars about 1" square. Along the sides of these every 5" there are two set screws, one will push the bars apart, the other will draw them together. With these you can control how far apart these two bars are locked into.


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The steel bars have a V groove machined into the point where they meet together. This v is machined at a slope of .001" drop per inch for the 60 " length. So from the shallow end to the deep end with the bars tight together the V groove is .060" deeper at the far end. So each 5" station set point is .005" deeper than the one prior. These stations are where you set your taper. With a dial indicator you use the set screws to adjust the bars to the exact number you need to hit to follow the "recipe" for the rod you are trying to replicate or create. Both top and bottom of the forms have V grooves. One side deeper that the other so you can do larger base strips and tip strips. I'll attach a taper for a rod below so you can see the sets for the stations. The recipe is flat to flat measurements of a hex rod, so each station is set to one half the stated measurement. You will also see the other details to replicate this particular rod.

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Some random pictures of Mike showing me how it's done! We setup the Bellinger Planes, well Mike showed me the process and then I got going! There's also a picture of the glue we'll use, most likely, although there are other options. And some spar varnish I'll possibly use for the wraps down the road that I have. Need to do some test wraps on a piece of bamboo rod that I got when I visited the Sweetgrass guys years ago or one of the many random pieces I got from a friend, Aaron, years ago! Great day! I'll be planing at our next session! And a few after that most likely!

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A cool site (canecalc.com) if anyone wants to geek out on tapers. There are many others and we watched a cool YouTube video today on building a node less rod and splicing pieces together.
 
Another session with Mike this morning, planing the tips sections down. Just putting in my time and learning the process and tips and tricks that Mike has learned over his years of building.

He showed me how to sharpen the blades and adjustment on the hand planes as well as checking the Bellinger plans and the tolerances we're going to be planing each piece down to. This process with continue for as many sessions as we need to get every piece down to where we can line them up and eventually glue them together! Needless to say, I will get a lot of time practicing this process! I have sped up a little, but am focused on learning the process and asking lots of questions as we go.
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Another fun day! We'll meet up again in a few weeks and continue my journey! Cheers!
 
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