Making Bamboo Fly Rods
A bamboo fly rod is made of six strips of bamboo glued together to form hexagon photo below.
Making bamboo fly rods. Making bamboo fly rods requires using cane of better than average quality and most bamboo fly rod makers use tonkin cane that is specially imported for that purpose. The strips are triangular in cross section and since the rod tapers from handle to tip the triangular strips taper too the triangle is bigger at one end of the strip than the other. All classes are tailored to each individual and include instruction tools and materials. The protruding rings that occur on bamboo are called nodes and require quite a bit of work to flatten out before the bamboo can be used to make a fly rod this image courtesy of andy royer.
Although each step is described a number of details are not fully covered. Join dozens of rod makers who have learned to make a split bamboo rod under the direction of angler craftsman ron barch. This is a step by step look at the process of making a split bamboo fly rod. I think that everyone would agree that we owe a debt to jerry foster who created the rodmakers site.