tools for bamboo

[claird]

I have a lot of bamboo which is ideal for hiking staffs. It is of course hollow and about 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch in wall thickness. When fully cured is is quite hard and fine grained. It has a hard very fine grained surface layer of perhaps 1/16" deep. I doubt I would want to go much below that in order to maintain the structural integrity of the staff. The pieces are 1" to 1 1/4" in diameter. I would like to do some shallow line carving of figures on the staff. What tools would you recommend? I do not have any tools at this point and want to keep it simple to start with, perhaps just a couple of tools. Figures would be about 1" x 2", at least that is what I would like to experiment with at this time.

[Dicky]

I would suggest small "V" tools or perhaps wood burning.

[claird]

Would that be something like a 1/8" v tool? Would there be any advantage to straight or bent on a rounded surface?

[bigEd_H]

An 1/8 v-tool or 2mm #11 u-gouge would work fine. I've used a knife on a couple bamboo sticks and it worked okay too. As you said, you can't cut too deep or the structural integrity of the bamboo is compromised.

[Ron T]

Hello and welcome, claird. I would try wood burning the figures on the sticks. I did that on some Yucca that I had.

[Dwayne Engle]

Hi Claird,
Hmmm...not to get off the subject, but do you grow your own bamboo? I've been looking for a source in order to make some hiking staffs from myself.

Dwayne

[brent]

Burning as stated earlier or power carving. Bamboo is so hard, I doubt regular tools will work to good. Probably spend more time sharpening than carving.