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Well after a spring vacation on a Cruise Ship it's time to get back to Bill's adventure making a bamboo fly rod. We are moving on the important details now. Time to try to hit some numbers repeatably every 5" on six strips to complete a tapered strip for a section before glue up. At each of...

Thank you for the kind words and posting. Mike

We do have the Bellinger Planing forms set to the taper (recipe) for the base section of the Martha Marie taper we have decided on. This is the thicker section with the grip and reel seat. We are planing all the tip strips in this first. The reason for this is to check the taper we have the...

Sunday the 3rd might be a bit quieter at the Cascade Crest Park.

How about we focus on the 2nd or the 3rd of May. The following weekend is Mother's Day weekend so that might be an issue for some of us, mainly me.

In an effort to continue the past tradition, is there any interest in another day casting and talking bamboo fly rods? Looking back to the 2025 event we met the first weekend of May.

Looks like a fun outing.

More planing today but we are moving on to the adjustable forms. Here is Bill making bamboo curls.

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...

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...

"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...

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...

So now we are needing the plane I mentioned before, about $100. This will be the tool for making all the passes on the strips when they are in the form set to the taper of the rod you are making. As you get very close to having the plane kiss the forms many of us change up to a scraper plane...

The next requirement will probably be the most expensive of your acquisitions, the adjustable planing form. This is the piece of equipment that will allow you to create nearly every published taper and whatever taper you create yourself. For a new form you are looking at $800 plus. The...

Next step you will need a medium sized knife to split the culm into strips. I use an old bread knife fo this step. After splitting the culm into strips, you should have about 24 strips from the top half of the 10' culm (tip strips) and 24 strips from the bottom half (base strips). The strips...

I'm going to spend a little time addressing the perceived expense of making a bamboo fly rod, how to start with a minimum cost investment. After getting your hands on a culm of bamboo ($60 now I believe) you will have the potential to make two single tip rods. First thing you will want to do...

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...

Here is Bill making the first few passes with the plane on a bamboo strip.

Time to make 100's of plane strokes and possibly shed some blood. These strips will be razor sharp on the apexes and will make a paper cut feel like it was done with a butter knife. Time to put on the gloves or leave the DNA tag on the rod itself. Most of my rods that I have made over the...

OK we'll try the quiet, zen flame method next visit and hope you don't burn my house down. 🤪