Turning cross-cut bamboo

[Royce Meritt]

Hi everyone. I saw a cutting board in a store the other day. Made up of laminated strips of bamboo. I thought this would make interesting pens if the board were cut cross grain and turned. I tried turning one small piece of this to practice but experienced severe tear-out. Aside from VERY SHARP tools, anyone have any suggestions for turning cross-cut bamboo? Thanks.

 

[gerryr]

I have never tried turning bamboo at all, but have some experience with from building fly rods. Bamboo is amazingly tough stuff and the longitudinal fibers are packed very close together and they are strong. When bamboo is stressed, the fibers tend to split apart from one another rather than break. My guess is that's what you're experiencing when you try to turn a cross cut peice. To do it without tearout, you might need carbide tools.

 

[alamocdc]

Royce, I've turned bamboo, but not x-cut. Gerry is probably right. To that end, you might try occassional applications of CA during the turning process.

 

[Dario]

Carbide tools may result in tear out a lot more. As tough as they are, they don't hold the same edge as steel does.

only thing I can think of is to stabilize (CA will basically do the same) before turning.

Good luck!!!

 

[wood-of-1kind]

The hardness from 'laminated' bamboo is from the impregnated resins/adhesive that are pressed under extreme pressure. This leads to challenges, even on sharp tools.

 

[Skye]

Isnt there one in the gallery somewhere?

 

[wdcav1952]

Royce,

As an alternative, go to Wal-Mart's craft department. They likely will have bamboo sections for use in purse making of some such stuff. [] Look on page two of my album here for my take on bamboo.

FWIW,

 

[Draken]

Time to break out the 80 grit gouge!

Disclaimer: Never tried it on bamboo, don't know if it will actually work better or not...

 

[CameronPotter]

Hi,

I might be talking about something different, but you can get bamboo flooring which is laminated...

I too thought that it sounded like a good idea, but I had the completely opposite experience - mine turned like a dream. I don't know why this might be, but it was some of the nicest stuff I have turned. That being said, I was called away half way through the job and didn't get to finish it (and have been busy since [!]) Still, I had no tear out at all...

If you haven't tried it, try to bamboo flooring (vertical laminations).

Cam

 

[CameronPotter]

Finished the pen. It looks a bit bland, but turned well and finished well.

Cam