Busse and Bamboo

Bamboo is a grass.
Structurally bamboo has a very high strength to weight ratio.

A tube, like a piece of metal pipe, will bend over longer lengths, even just under it's own weight. The thing that makes bamboo strong are the connected sections with the partitions, that is what makes it extra strong.

I really liked the split Bamboo used as a water trough, great!
Pict, that stalk you are touching is awesome, the girth is amazing!


OK, something I learned long ago, and it is actually survival related. :thumbup:

You can make a water tight storage tube out of bamboo.
Cut some sections, just below each partition. Take a measurement of outside diameter, as compared to inside diameters, and with no more than a little shaving and smoothing, you can make a tightly fitting "telescoping" storage tube by slipping a larger diameter over a smaller diameter section.

You can store water in the sections, or keep items dry. Don't hammer them together, it'll be the dickens to get them apart again. Push them together with a twisting motion. To loosen, pull while "un-twisting".

And, remember, it's gonna be tough to find a better "ready grown" survival fishing pole than a nice skinny piece of bamboo. :thumbup:
 
Great article.
I've traveled a bit in the tropics seen first hand how useful bamboo can be. My self I make archery equipment,Chinese tonkin cane backed Osage flat bow with Japanese arrow bamboo arrows is like a primitive rocket launcher.
 
Great Post :thumbup:

I have Seen very simple bamboo pots made by cutting a short section and placing a piece of wire as a handle loop

This Post was definitley Woodcraft or primative skills If not Survival and was very Informative.

Nice knife Be the Way. I dont know if a lesser knife couldnt have done as well but Im sure it was nice to be sure yours could.
 
Dry bamboo is a great material for friction fire as well. I take a section and split it into a fireboard and a saw. It can be a three handed operation until you get the hang of it. If the bamboo is seasoned (Yellow to gray) it will have a good bit of moisture, unseasoned bamboo, at least here is bright green.

I've been planning to carve a bow drill set from some of that really thick stuff I have seasoning in my workshop.

You can make a decent bottle by cutting above and below the nodes of large bamboo and then drilling out the end. The nodes can be very hard to drill with a knife but if you have an iron bar you can heat and burn, scraping away the char until you are through. Then just fit a wooden plug to the hole.

You can boil water in the bottom of a large section of bamboo and either cook directly in it or use an upper section as a steamer.

Most bamboo groves I've ever seen here will have shoots coming up all over the place. Pick the young ones that look like aspargus, dice, boil and change the water at least once to remove the bitter flavor. Mac
 
Great thread mate. Very informative. Bamboo is certainly amazing stuff, it has so many uses and would be a great material to have available when needing to build a shelter. Awsome knife too, that is an SFNO isn't it?
 
Thanks again everyone. Some people have added some real good info here.

Pict: I haven't tried using bamboo to steam food yet but that is next on my list the next time I am out. it seems to me like it should work well, glad to hear that this seems to be the case.

perksy: yeah, thats the SFNO with tiger stripe magnum handles. it was my first expensive knife purchase and, JurT knows this already ;) , there is no way I'm ever letting go of it. it might just go to the grave with me.
 
I have happen to do some little work with bamboo and, seriously this really amazing stuff. And when I say amazing, I mean it.

It like having some sort of hi-tech carbon fiber tubes on spot, for free:

They are straight, tough, flexible, ultra-light and easily harvested: it is like working with man-made materials, even better.

Could easily make container, beam, raft... Actually we even made beer pints out of it.

Seriously working with bamboo is almost too easy.
 
Great thread!!! Need more like this!!!!

Lovely pics, informative, detailed... and yeah... INFI rules!


Its the easiest steel to sharpen, and its unbelievable how long it holds an edge for... toughest steel on the market... thanks to the man Jerry Busse... :)
 
Roughedges, Where are you in SE florida. I have some INFI but no bamboo to play with. I would love to learn. Maybe you are near enough and willing enough to tutor a padiwan from Jupiter.
 
Bamboo is a great blade testing medium. I use it often to test my chopping blades. Green bamboo is rarely an issue, dried bamboo can tell you quickly if your edge profile is too thin.

Any blade with an edge as thick as the Busse should have no problem with either dry or green in my view, although ive not been able to test any INFI yet.

Has much more to do with edge geometry and heat treat than steel type used.
 
Roughedges, thanks for this thread and the observation of bamboo re-establishing the edge on your Outlaw. I find that both interesting and odd enough to add it to my list of "Things that make you go 'Hmmmm.....' ". In my experience, the thing that most quickly wore through Busse crinkle coating (usually pretty tenacious stuff compared to most blade coatings I've worked with) was splitting some bamboo. It is a *VERY* abrasive material.

Bamboo's high silica content is likely why, as quoted from this page which has a ton of info on bamboo in general:
In addition to cellulose and lignin, the thick-walled fibers of bamboo also contain up to five percent silica in the form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Although bamboo culms do not have the structure of true wood, they are very hard because they contain silica and lignin.

Does anyone know if the USDA has a ban on importing Moso bamboo, which is one of the largest of the lumber bamboos, into the USA? One nurseryman I spoke with a couple years ago indicated that there is such a ban. However, poles and plants of Moso can be gotten, including from these Alabama folks who show their own grove of it on their website.
 
The bamboo fibers all align vertically along the length of the culm so its a relatively simple thing to split the bamboo that way. Also, since the infi edge seems to realign so readily with steel or strop I believe that splitting the bamboo with the fibers simply took the place of a steel.

Chopping it perpendicular to the fibers is a different story altogether and can quickly show a blade's major flaws, if it has any, like RMLamey said.


The importation of bamboo is highly regulated for study and quarantine purposes. They generally have to go through licensed ag. centers before being allowed to be sold here. As a result, prices for bamboos tend to be higher than for other tropical plants.

This is a site that offers 'moso' and many other timber bamboos plus probably hundreds of others. They are in Loxahatchee, Florida but will ship and are licensed by the Florida Dept. of Agriculture to do so. Tropical Bamboo

Plus, I know the guy- his plants are tops and he has many varieties I've never seen elsewhere. Not trying to plug his business and I'm not a shill... he's just the only place I know of that reliably sells any of the giant timber bamboos. He only sells tropical species though, generally plants that can survive temps down into the 20s. For those living in colder climes there are less options but still at least several dozen. Many bamboos in the genus Phyllostachs and genus Fargesia are cold hardy, some to below zero. Cold hardy bamboos Also, for anyone interested, the book "American Bamboos" is a very comprehensive study of nearly all bamboos known to be cultivated or growing native in the Americas with a good size section on the herbaceous and more cold hardy bamboos. Also, it briefly discusses the history of bamboo in human culture, its uses, etc.


As for growing bamboo in Az, if you are willing to water it like a tropical there are many varieties that can handle the colder winter temperatures there. It might also do better if given some shade through the hottest summer afternoon sun.
 
Once in a while something in nature will make me stop and marvel at how so much is provided for us, and how ingenius and perfect they are for our survival. Eggs were a recent one, and now bamboo.
Oh yeah, another was natural materials for cold weather clothes, goose down and such.
 
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