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These guys have bamboo veneer too. One could maybe contemplate a Nomex double top with it...

Peace,
Sanaka

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...imagine there were no hypothetical situations...

Nice Mike, please share the results when it's done!
From my side, like I said, my singer will speak to this japanese luthier soon. So I'll give you the infos i can get

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Oops... I forgot to include the link of the supplier: http://www.4windsbamboo.com/stairs/bamboo-stairs.html

It ain't cheap. $50-$60 a board. Then there is shipping which I have not heard back about yet.

I like Mike's (MRS) link better. More info on grain structure. I will contact them next.

Mike

Bamboo is quite soft if you take the hard skin off of it. years ago I decided to make an archery bow with a bamboo back (the side facing away from the archer). I sawed some strips of bamboo on a bandsaw,about 3/4" wide,and ran them through a thickness sander until I had nice even little slabs of bamboo. It was very floppy without the skin. I decided it was too floppy to use for a bow.

You can read that bamboo flooring is very soft and easy to damage,too. It is indeed like a large,dry grass when the skin is planed off. Of course,as said,it is a grass.

Nota Bene: All the bamboo veneer that has passed my way has had a fuzzy cloth/fibre backing on it (to hold it together) that IMO is a sound deadener, rendering it entirely unsuitable for use in a double-top soundboard. Caveat emptor!

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Mike

No duty on bamboo coming to Canada. I bought 6k worth this week out of Atlanta Georgia.

Bob

There is a little bit of mis information it seems in this thread. I don't know it all but I have built bamboo fly rods and I have used a lot of "plyboo" and some plyboo venner... Also I have laid more than a few bamboo floors. (Building bamboo fly rods requires one to be able to process from the raw cane to the delicately tapered pie shaped pieces worked to thousands tolerances to the final rod. To do it one needs to be very familiar with the material. )
The plyboo you can get it in 3/4" or 1/2" or 1/8" sheets 4'x8'. It is not held together with resin. It is bamboo strips glued up edge wise and then laid up in a cross bonded arrangement. Hence the name ply-boo. Using this in a guitar back would be just like wood only instead of a 2 piece back you would have about a 16 piece back. Depending on how you did it you would have a ply type of back or solid.


Where can you read that ? That is patently false. Bamboo is about in the middle of the Janka test for hardness. It rates harder than maple, oak, beech, birch, etc. It does vary depending on quality and type of bamboo, when it was harvested and so on. Just like wood. The Janka test takes a average and since there are some cheapie bamboo floor products where they harvested too soon the #'s are a bit skewed against bamboo. Even so it comes out harder than most of the traditional flooring wood used in this country.

Not true. First of all the skin on bamboo is very thin and papery. It is almost never left on any type of bamboo product. You can scrape it off quite easily with about anything. If you looked at a cross section of bamboo you would see a very dense packing of fibers on the outside with the density of the fibers diminishing as you move to the center. The outer layers are the densest and hardest. Bamboo has a pithy center and that can be soft. You want to use the outer portion. It is not soft nor floppy.
Also there are many species of bamboo and they vary in their properties and what they are used for.
George, the bamboo would have worked well for your bow but you may have not used the right kind and you didn't prep it correctly. I would suspect to best bamboo to use would be Tonkin cane. Grows large and has a large # of "power" fibers. Use the outer layer or more correctly the outside area of the stalk and you would have been good. You ever tried sinew ? I used to make my own hide glue and sinew backed bows. Way back in my tepee days. That's another story.
Link

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

Thanks Link for adding your experience to the mix. Bamboo is a facinating material. I think in the future there will be a market for instruments made with "renewable" stock. Now is the time to start experimenting.

Mike

I found a reference to this place in a fine woodworking magazine. I'm looking for some lumber sized bamboo for a wood project i'm thinking about. I haven't ordered from them yet. If you do before me post some info on the quality of their service.

I do not doubt that. But shipping anything from here to Canada requires customs paperwork. Actually, the post office should alert you and provide the paperwork. My alert was meant for folks sending stuff from alternative mailing sites where a postal worker might not be there to warn you.

Mike

I wonder how it would work if the fibers were woven in place of a nomex layer for a double top? hmmm.....LOL.

FWIW, I have been buying bamboo (or bamglue or plyboo) in 1/2" x 3.5" x 30" boards from http://www.oaklandaxefactory.com/

I have paid $30-40US per board. I find it easy to work with, not much fraying, hard, and a little heavy. The thread I just posted ("Box Guitar") has the guitar with the bamboo neck. I only use it for necks at the moment. I have been wondering if I could split these boards with the table saw, plane and joint them and make an acoustic top out of them. Or maybe carve an arched top with them. The cost makes me think twice. But I like trying new things, and helping the environment.

My experiment was with local Virginia grown bamboo. I am aware of Tonkin being the best,but had only about a 2' length of it. Also,it has to be properly tempered in an oven. 15 minutes at 350 degrees,IIRC.