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page 40
Bamboo Journal
Italian Bamboo Rodmakers Association
Three split bamboo strips are planed lat on the
outside (enamel side). They are then glued with
animal glue lat against lat, onto the tracks on
the beam. Animal glue is selected because it is
reversible. The glued strip will have some
irregular overhang protruding over the beam
sides. The overhang will then be planed away so
that at the end the strips will be lush to the
beam sides. Finally the strips are detached by
applying heat (do not fear. Violins are also taken
apart this way, without damaging the wood nor
the varnish. And can be reglued!).
Moss’s book is rudimentary to say the least and
it does not explain how the lat tracks must be
made to have the desired taper. Although he
does not neglect to reccomend the precision of
one mil with annoying lippancy. A real disease
for rodmakers! The book and the method were
severely criticised at their time by Herter and I
think no rod maker uses this technique anymo-
re. Rolf Baginsky too, in his book, speaking of
the dawn of rod making, mentions Moss’s
method and seriously criticises it and in particu-
lar, the fact the method calls for the external
planing of the bamboo with a massive loss of
external ibers, the “power ibers”.
But was the former beam ever used by profes-
sionals? By whom and when? I am doing a small
research and I have discovered interesting
things thanks to the courtesy of Edward Barder,
the very famous rodmaker in England, who told
me the technique was probably invented by
William Hardy, in about 1880. He was disturbed
by the presence in the UK of the US made
Leonard rods and bought a few and had them
unglued with hot water by a cabinetmaker. He
then asked him if he could invent a technique to
produce strips with the same precision as the
Leonard. The answer was positive and it seems
it was the technique described many years later
by Moss. Certainly, with the presence of a
cabinetmaker to suggest a constructive method,
the story is plausible. Edward Barder also told
me it was the technique followed by Walker and
Bampton, partly founded by people from Hardy.
Walker and Bampton boasted about the fact that
they used the old original Hardy technique and
this reinforces the suspicion that the technique
was indeed invented at Hardy. Again, thanks to
the kindness of Edward Barder, I hear that, after
the closing down of Walker and Bampton in the
60’s, some artisans went at it alone and used the
method until not many years ago. I believe that
is fair to say that while the planing form was
very openly described in texts that stretch along
a lengthy period of time and is clearly marked
US, the method of the former beam has remai-
ned underground and conined to the UK. The
research continues with the help of Andrew
Herd and Calum Gladstone, who were at the IX
IBRA Meeting last year in Sansepolcro with Tom
Moran. I heartily thank them.
Personal stories.
I am so old that my irst contact with the world
of bamboo rod making was in fact with the
Former Beam technique in Scotland by pure
chance in the late 70’s during a ishing trip to
Forsinard. With my dear friend Peter Behan I
went to Forsinard to try salmon ishing in the
rivers in the area. “Spate rivers” damned unpre-
dictable, where you ish only if the river is in
lood. But the lood never came, and we ended
up ishing brown trout in small isolated lochs
near Forsinard. During a trip back to the hotel, I
broke my rod and Peter took me to Rob Wilson’s
shop in Brora to get a new rod. Mr. Wilson asked
us if we were interested in seeing his laboratory
for bamboo rod making. At that time, I had not
started rod making and I knew almost nothing
about the building techniques. I remember that
the book on Garrison was not available yet.
Obviously, I was very happy to visit and I still
remember very clearly what I saw that afterno-
on.
Mr. Wilson took us to his laboratory, which was
not far from the shop. It was on the irst loor of
a small building above a bakery.