fake bamboo

bscofield · Post by **bscofield** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 1:56 pm

I thought everyone would like to get a glimpse at this... I was chatting with Love a week ago or so and he asked me if I had seen his "fake bamboo." I asked what he meant and he told me to goto his home page. The front page has an image at the top with two pipes in it. The one with the bamboo is NOT bamboo. It's boxwood he carved that way... pretty spiff, I thought!

http://www.geigerpipes.com/

sgillett · Post by **sgillett** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 3:33 pm

OK....now to ask the rookie question....Why would you want a fake bamboo stem? Bamboo is used for its functionality as well as for its beauty. Why fake it? It's not hard to get. Maybe to show off your artistic ability as a pipe maker?

Steve

geigerpipes · Post by **geigerpipes** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 5:12 am

Well to awnser the question myself the only reason why I made it was to show off...no seriously I made it for a number of reasons...boxwood is a lot thougher than bamboo, bamboo is relativley easy to get but getting good quality is another matter..when working with boxwood or other materials I can drill it in the 3-jaw chuck because it is a round rod to begin with and that gives me a more precisie method of engeneering....other makers have made imitated bamboo but i have never seen it with the knuckles and all and I try to be different......and of coure there is also the show of factor...

Best

love
www.geigerpipes.com

jeff · Post by **jeff** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:16 am

Love,

That is very impressive indeed. Showing off worked in this case. And there will certainly be collectors interested in a bamboo pipe that they take a second look at and realize that it is not bamboo at all. Great work!

Jeff

bscofield · Post by **bscofield** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 1:39 pm

Hey Love, has that pipe sold?

geigerpipes · Post by **geigerpipes** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 2:34 pm

Yes it was a custom oreder that tuned out differently than I originaly planed but the customer still wanted it..

Love
www.geigerpipes.com

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 2:48 pm

Very cool buddy. I would have never thought that wasn't real.

geigerpipes · Post by **geigerpipes** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 7:53 am

Well thank you gentlemen...

Here are some more pictures of the pipe for thouse intrested..

http://www.geigerpipes.com/gpipe.php?id=81

Best

Love
www.geigerpipes.com

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:57 am

The Erroneous Elephant! I love it! Great name.

NvilleDave · Post by **NvilleDave** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:20 pm

geigerpipes wrote:...boxwood is a lot thougher than bamboo, bamboo is relativley easy to get but getting good quality is another matter..
www.geigerpipes.com

How do you know if the bamboo is quality or not? Seriously, I really don't know. Is it the spacing between the knuckles or something.

I'm at the zoo last weekend right? I'm in the monkey forrest kinda thing... there's like a bamboo forest... I look down and low and behold there's a runner (root thingy or whatever you call it). Being the cheapscape that I am, I picked it up... looks like the same thing I see in everyone's pictures. How do I know if I have a quality piece of bamboo?

bscofield · Post by **bscofield** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:09 pm

Wow... I've heard interesting ways of getting bamboo... but that's got to be the most creative

Post by **KurtHuhn** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:41 pm

NvilleDave wrote:I'm at the zoo last weekend right? I'm in the monkey forrest kinda thing... there's like a bamboo forest... I look down and low and behold there's a runner (root thingy or whatever you call it). Being the cheapscape that I am, I picked it up... looks like the same thing I see in everyone's pictures. How do I know if I have a quality piece of bamboo?

Can you make a pipe with it? Does it look good? *shrugs* If you can, sounds like quality to me.

Generally, quality is determined by the distance between nodes, color, and thickness of "skin" as well as the size.

Brendhain · Post by **Brendhain** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 6:29 am

NvilleDave

If you are going to use that to piece of bamboo for a pipe shank then you are going to have to treat the wood. I have done some research on wood treatments and came across an academic study of the different industrial treatments performed on bamboo, in Japan, India and China.
Here are two extracts:
I
This involves extraction of gummy substances and reduction in starch content. The purpose of removing gummy substances is to achieve an even color, while removal of starch reduces later attacks by fungi and insects.
To achieve an evenly lustrous ivory color to bamboo, Japanese crafts persons extract the gummy substances by two methods - dry and wet (Anonymous n.d). In the dry process, green bamboo is evenly heated at 120°C. This causes the gummy substances and water to emerge and they are wiped off with a dry cloth. In the wet process, the bamboo is kept immersed in boiling water for 1-2 hours or in caustic soda (0.2-0.8%) or sodium carbonate (0.2-1.2%) solution for l0-15 minutes. After immersion, the surface of the bamboo is wiped with a dry cloth.
Different methods are used to leach out starch. One widely practiced method is to keep the bamboo immersed in water for a period of up to 90 days (Sulthoni 198 7). The water may be stagnant or slushy. A method practiced by the people in Dandakaranya region in India is to fell the culms with branches intact and keep them standing upright under the sun for two weeks. The branches are then removed and the culms stood upright in shade for two months (Kaley et al. 1993).
II
"While dyeing results in coloration, the color is only on the surface and subsequent splitting, slicing or cutting exposes uncolored portions. A technique for carbonizing bamboo has been developed which results in the bamboo attaining a rich brown color throughout. Bamboo processed this way can be cut, sliced, veneered, etc.
In the process, whole or split bamboo is put inside a steam boiler for about 20-30 minutes at 5 kg/cm 2 (150°C). This results in the bamboo attaining a uniform brown color."

If you want the link for more reading then let me know. The entire document is 30 pages or so…if I recall correctly.

NvilleDave · Post by **NvilleDave** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 5:47 pm

Brendhain,
Thanks for the great info... Very interesting. Until I picked up the piece of bamboo the other day, I had never seen any first hand, so I was more curious than anything. The piece I have is too small for use. But seeing it and reading this post got the wheels turning and made me wonder--what makes quality bamboo quality?

Thanks,
Dave

kbosi · Post by **kbosi** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 12:24 pm

Well Love, I think you did an outstanding job on that stem. I was looking at you page a few days ago and never thought it was anything but bamboo.
Excellent Job!!

Paul_Tatum · Post by **Paul_Tatum** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:00 pm

Brendhain wrote:NvilleDave

If you are going to use that to piece of bamboo for a pipe shank then you are going to have to treat the wood.

A method practiced by the people in Dandakaranya region in India is to fell the culms with branches intact and keep them standing upright under the sun for two weeks. The branches are then removed .

Is this for the stalks or the rizome? The idea of treating my bamboo never occurred to me and now I am curious. I recall Trever got some home grown bamboo a few years ago and I don't recall him ever mentioning doing anything to it other than drying it.

Paul

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:06 pm

I was under the impression that drying was all there was to it as well.

Got me.

Post by **KurtHuhn** » Thu May 05, 2005 9:23 pm

Some makers of bamboo flutes use a propane torch to heat the culm and drive the moisture to the surface. Once it starts to come to the surface, they wipe it down and it dries into some sort of polymer coating due to the sugars and proteins that get deposited.

I've never seen rhizomes treated this way. I've only seen them dried very well.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Fri May 06, 2005 9:12 am

I think the Ardor folks do this, as a number of the bamboo pipes I've seen from them have scorch marks. I'd heard of this too as a quick drying method.

Brendhain · Post by **Brendhain** » Fri May 06, 2005 9:37 am

Somewhere I have a long document on bamboo curing. It is an academic study of the different techniques. Most, if not all, are asian techniques.

If someone wants me to dig it up and send tit to them then just lest me know.