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How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

bambooimport.com

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Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#31

Post by leoedin »

Has anyone worked with bamboo plywood? How does it compare to other plywoods?

It doesn't appear (at least on the website linked) to be particularly cheap - a full sheet of 20mm bamboo plywood is almost €300! You could probably buy 3-5 sheets of 18mm baltic birch for that price - hardly the cheap material they're claiming.

I bought a cheap chair made of bamboo once and it was very soft - it didn't give me the impression it would hold up very long. Perhaps some of the processing steps for plywood improve that?

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#32

Post by eru »

dehrmann wrote: post #23
willvarfar wrote: post #13

A general question: how does forestry avoid degrading the soil? If you keep removing the plants that grow, rather than allowing them to rot and return the nutrients they sucked up during their lifetime back the soil, do the trees steadily grow worse until it is no longer profitable and you have to go grow trees somewhere else?

Wood is mostly cellulose (which is all carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen). There's some calcium and potassium, but not that much. You are correct that it's not entirely renewable.

Not sure what you mean by renewable? Would carbon, hydrogen and oxygen be more renewable than calcium and potassium? They are all just elements we have a lot of on earth.

And those elements don't get used up. Toss your wood on a compost pile, and you can re-use them?

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#33

Post by g0gzs »

Long time lurker here, first time poster. I got pulled into the rabbit hole of building guitars at home during the covid lockdowns. My first build used traditional "tonewoods" (mahogany, ebony, rosewood etc.) and while purchasing materials for my second build, I stumbled upon bamboo boards on a German wood retailed shop.

Compared the properties to the wood I wanted to use for parts of it (mainly the core/neck and fretboard) and decided to go for it.

So the second build [1] is 40ish % bamboo with purpleheart veneers in between layers of bamboo and purpleheart/olive for the body. Next build will be around 80% bamboo. Trying to source some strand woven bamboo boards to try them out as fretboards as well, but for a part time builder like me, getting such small quantities of bamboo boards is rather hard.

But yeah, fascinating material even outside of construction use. The boards I used for the guitar builds were nice to work with, easy to sand and finish (using wipe on poly).

[1] https://i.imgur.com/fUyxd7n.jpg

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#34

Post by bserge »

leoedin wrote: post #31

Has anyone worked with bamboo plywood? How does it compare to other plywoods? It doesn't appear (at least on the website linked) to be particularly cheap - a full sheet of 20mm bamboo plywood is almost €300! You could probably buy 3-5 sheets of 18mm baltic birch for that price - hardly the cheap material they're claiming. I bought a cheap chair made of bamboo once and it was very soft - it didn't give me the impressi…

Yeah I noticed the ads(?) at the bottom with the price. ~150 Euros for a square meter? Damn. It's probably cheaper in China/Asia, but not here lol

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#35

Post by quickthrower2 »

senectus1 wrote: post #7

I would love to know if there are any "hobby" communities for "doing things" with bamboo. I'd love to pot some of the fast growing stuff at home and harvest it to muck around with.

The simplest thing (survival stuff) is you can cut a section leaving one node (I think it is called?) and use it as a cup / water heating vessel, or keep 2 nodes turn it 90 degrees and cut a hole in the top and you have something to cook in. Using a knife you can fashion a spoon for eating what you cooked.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#36

Post by lopis »

eru wrote: post #32
dehrmann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is mostly cellulose (which is all carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen). There's some calcium and potassium, but not that much. You are correct that it's not entirely renewable.

Not sure what you mean by renewable? Would carbon, hydrogen and oxygen be more renewable than calcium and potassium? They are all just elements we have a lot of on earth. And those elements don't get used up. Toss your wood on a compost pile, and you can re-use them?

The way the wood is treated, it can't just be composted. It contains too many chemicals that would contaminate the floor. You can't compost furniture.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#37

Post by Ma8ee »

dragontamer wrote: post #16
coryrc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tree bulk comes from the air, not the soil.

And the next most significant macronutrient is nitrogen/potassium. Aka: typical fertilizer.

The right plants catches nitrogen from the air. Fungus and microorganisms make minerals, like potassium, available from sand and rocks.

This works great until someone destroys the soil by killing all microorganisms with pesticides or fertilisers. Forests are very good at producing a lot of biomass without help fertilisers, even when a lot of trees are "harvested".

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#39

Post by riffraff »

vinhboy wrote: post #22
coryrc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tree bulk comes from the air, not the soil.

I don't know why, but it took me years to internalize this... lol...

likewise, took me years to internalize that when you're losing weight, you're breathing and pissing most of it: you burn C+H+O compounds, and expel CO2 and H20.
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