6FOOT5
28th December 2005, 07:54 PM
Hi to all,
I've been designing and handmaking eyewear for 5 years now using materials like buffalo horn, acetates, exotic timbers, aluminium and stainless steel amongst others. But for a while now i've been entertaining a back head notion that bamboo would make an excellent lightweight, durable and sustainable material. I've never used bamboo successfully, experimenting briefly with split cane I took from one of those bamboo window blinds. I treated it the same way i'd treated various timbers when bending, ie soaking in warm water and bending over heated pipes, this worked well, but alot of splitting occurred. I know that, technically, bamboo is a grass and not wood, but has anyone any Ideas of how best to manipulate small sections of split bamboo? Also i'm living in Australia at present and have no idea where to source the material.
For now I'm looking for suitable lengths for the temple on a frame, thats the bit that connects to the front where the lenses are held and runs behind the ear.
Any help on where i can aquire the material and how bend it successfully would be most welcome. This is just a start, I'll probably need help when I start thinking about laminating (what glue sticks bamboo to bamboo??) and perhaps finding a manufacturer that can do all this in larger volumes,
Thanks for reading,
Brian
6FOOT5 EYEWEAR
I've been designing and handmaking eyewear for 5 years now using materials like buffalo horn, acetates, exotic timbers, aluminium and stainless steel amongst others. But for a while now i've been entertaining a back head notion that bamboo would make an excellent lightweight, durable and sustainable material. I've never used bamboo successfully, experimenting briefly with split cane I took from one of those bamboo window blinds. I treated it the same way i'd treated various timbers when bending, ie soaking in warm water and bending over heated pipes, this worked well, but alot of splitting occurred. I know that, technically, bamboo is a grass and not wood, but has anyone any Ideas of how best to manipulate small sections of split bamboo? Also i'm living in Australia at present and have no idea where to source the material.
For now I'm looking for suitable lengths for the temple on a frame, thats the bit that connects to the front where the lenses are held and runs behind the ear.
Any help on where i can aquire the material and how bend it successfully would be most welcome. This is just a start, I'll probably need help when I start thinking about laminating (what glue sticks bamboo to bamboo??) and perhaps finding a manufacturer that can do all this in larger volumes,
Thanks for reading,
Brian
6FOOT5 EYEWEAR