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Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

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Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#31

Post by roymurdock »

dtougas wrote: post #28
jpatokal wrote: post #4

Bamboo isn't going to replace lumber for most permanent uses, but it sure is handy when you need to put something together in a pinch. I was once trekking in northern Thailand with some Akha hill tribe guides. When it was time for dinner, they cut down a large bamboo and within minutes fashioned essentially a complete dinner service out of it: * A framework for their overnight hut/lean-to * A pot for boiling rice * A…

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Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#32

Post by brodouevencode »

cmiller1 wrote: post #26
RobertRoberts wrote: post #14

Relatives that lived in Japan brought back bamboo stuff to the US, and it all cracked within a year or so. The reason was that bamboo does well in wet climates where the moisture in the air keeps in flexible. (or something like that) But in the US, it's much drier (most places) than in Japan. This fits with my experience of bamboo furniture over the years as well. It becomes brittle and fragile the older it gets. But…

I have engineered bamboo "wood" flooring that I like a lot and after a few years haven't noticed any cracking or warping; perhaps it went through more extensive treatment processes?

Flooring - first it's cut into strips, then boiled in a solution to remove the starchy compounds, then dried and pressed, then planed down for a lamination process, laminated (using typically more epoxy than other lumber-based laminates), then cut into the final form for the end user. Bamboo is a grass, and it's hollow - it neither looks nor handles like real lumber. It's often touted as a "greener" alternative to lumber - given the amount of energy and additives I'm not so sure this is the case: I would love to see someone actually do an analysis of this.

Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#33

Post by hiccuphippo »

There's a YouTube channel (0) that uploads videos from a girl in China building things out of bamboo, watching her work is entrancing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LTejJnrzGPM

[0] I think the channel is fan made and she actually posts them to a Chinese social media site.

Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#34

Post by barry-cotter »

ianai wrote: post #13
londons_explore wrote: post #2

This article makes no mention of biomass per acre when farmed. As a C4 photosynthesis plant, bamboo presumably grows more biomass per year than other trees. If true, that would seem significant enough to outweigh many of the disadvantages.

Iirc, there’s a bamboo tree that grows very fast and has been considered for carbon sequestration. But the problem is, as with all trees, the carbon isn’t locked away from the atmosphere. It also takes up valuable farm land as they need something more like marshland than drier, more common land.

You can make charcoal from it which generates some heat from burning but doesn’t release near as much of the carbon. Then you can treat the charcoal to make terra preta, which is a soil additive that lasts centuries and encourages soil formation and carbon retention itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#35

Post by mhandley »

m_eiman wrote: post #8

The list of uses is missing the best one: clothing! Bamboo fabric is very soft and comfortable, if you haven't tried it yet you should! Downside: it doesn't last as long as cotton, and takes a bit longer to dry after washing.

Bamboo fabric is rayon, which is a semi-synthetic plastic. It's not at all clear this is good for the environment - according to this study, more than half the plastic microfibres in seawater are rayon:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141216212253.h...

Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#36

Post by Tor3 »

Laforet wrote: post #30
Tor3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt what you're saying, but I wonder why my bamboo ski poles don't crack. I have lots of them, and they've been used every winter for nearly forty years, from back when I bought them. They're as good as new, still. I bought all the stock of the last shop selling them at the time, in my student town, as I didn't want to use fiber or metal poles in the mountains (can't easily be fixed if they break, while bam…

Bamboo is anisotropic like timber, which means that expansion and contraction caused by drying or temperature variation will happen at different rates along the tangential, longitutional and radial axis. Crack happens when stress exceed the tensile strength of the material in one direction. Thus a long and thin object is less vulnerable to this type of failure as only one axis undergoes a significant change in size.…

I suspect you are correct in your assumptions in the last paragraph, at least about being kiln heated. That seems very likely. There is also a thin layer of something, could be resin or lacquer as you suggest. It is definitely not epoxy though (re. next poster)

Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#38

Post by village-idiot »

I feel that a lot of concern about replacing wood is misplaced or fails to properly differentiate between different species of wood harvested in different locations.

America has a mix of forests for nature preservation, recreation, and lumber production. The latter are very well managed, with loggers very careful to replace all the trees they remove with saplings so their sons and daughters have something to harvest in 50 years. The total result is that the number of US trees has doubled in 70 years, and were actually back up to 2/3 of the estimated 1600s tree count. I personally have no qualms about consuming American harvested hardwood, because I know that it’s part of a successful forestry program that’s planting more trees than it takes.

Now the one place the above doesn’t apply are South American and African hardwoods, which are currently not super well managed. So feel free to enjoy your Oak or Cherry floors, but maybe pass on the Mahogany and Teak.

Re: Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry?

#39

Post by drzaiusx11 »

cmiller1 wrote: post #26
RobertRoberts wrote: post #14

Relatives that lived in Japan brought back bamboo stuff to the US, and it all cracked within a year or so. The reason was that bamboo does well in wet climates where the moisture in the air keeps in flexible. (or something like that) But in the US, it's much drier (most places) than in Japan. This fits with my experience of bamboo furniture over the years as well. It becomes brittle and fragile the older it gets. But…

I have engineered bamboo "wood" flooring that I like a lot and after a few years haven't noticed any cracking or warping; perhaps it went through more extensive treatment processes?

"engineered" is the key word here. I too have bamboo flooring. When cutting pieces to fit I noticed a distinct epoxy/chemical smell foreign to what I'd encountered when cutting standard red oak flooring.
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