It all starts with a 12 foot culm of bamboo

Bamboo Rod Build, Part II, The Final Split

Building a bamboo rod is not difficult. It does, however, require a great deal of commitment and attention to detail. I was the dorky kid who had a natural affinity toward complicated, detailed things. For example, I enjoyed esoteric board games that came with ½ inch thick instruction booklets. It's probably for the same reason that I gravitated towards fly fishing, fly tying, and eventually bamboo rod building. I love the detail. Although the goal is rarely, if ever, achieved, each rod begins as a detailed pursuit of perfection. In his fine book, Casting a Spell, George Black quotes Hoagy Carmichael about the pursuit of perfection in bamboo rod building: "A good rod, a really good rod, is one where you make maybe nine mistakes." My hope is that this rod will have only nine mistakes.

Continuing with that lofty pursuit, we now have to do the final split to the twelve tip strips, which are presently ½" in width. Incidentally, I love splitting cane. If I could find employment doing nothing but splitting cane, I'd take it in a heartbeat. It's very calming and therapeutic, and, at the end of the process, it is extremely satisfying to hold 24 perfectly split bamboo tip strips and 18 butt strips.

On the back side (pith side) of the strip, there is now a slight hump, which is remnants of the inner nodular dam:


These humps are planed flat with 10 or 12 passes with my trusty Stanley 9.5 block plane (the rod maker's best friend) outiftted with a finely tuned (sharpened) Hock blade:


Now the strip is turned enamel or "bark" side up for the final split. This final split will be done at slightly more deliberate pace because there very little room for error. Using the same technique employed for the first strip split, at roughly the middle of the 1/2" strip, I find the center of the strip width (a flexible ruler an be used here) and strike my knife with the rubber mallet to start the split:


Once again moving to the end of my bench, I anchor the srewdriver in the 2x4 and from the middle of the strip working towards one end, I continue the split. This time I've anchored the screwdriver very close to the bench edge and work up closer with my hand to gain more control of the split. Again, it's important to keep the back side of the strip flush against the 2x4 to ensure square strip edges:


Now I reverse the strip end to end and, working from the middle of the strip towards the other end, I finish my split. If the split starts to wonder off center, I simply push the trip against the thicker section to bring it back on center. If all goes well with the remaining splits, I'll soon be holding 24 tip and 18 butt strips:


Okay, Boo Boys, we've got a start, but there's still lots of work to be done...