Splitting Bamboo - Cause and Prevention

[kevinrl]

Hi all,
I have just had a rather harrowing experience over the last few days.
I have a small shop where I sell Bamboo furniture that we import from the Philippines, as well as a few small items that we make ourselves from locally grown bamboos.
Our weather has been very dry for the last few months, (east coast of Australia, about 200 km north of the border) and everything has dried out to the stage that
our locally made articles are exploding with the noise of very loud fire crackers.
Now this is a worry, as it is only the things made from Moso that had actually died while in the grove, that are cracking up. Large splits, and not a good thing to happen when buyers are in the shop.
I had harvested the poles a few months ago, and the were dead in the grove, then made them into things like money boxes, rainsticks and simple instruments,(scrapers and bonkers etc.)
So they had a very low moisture content from the start, and had holes etc cut into them, they are not closed by nodes.
Any ideas or reasons would be gratefully accepted.
Regards,
Kevin Lang

[The bzplace]

Dear Kevin:
... it is recommended that if it's very dry you should place
an item inside a glass case, (for example) with a dish of water to keep it from cracking. I realize you cannot do that with whole culms of Bamboo though! lol...
Sincerely,
Pat

[Mark Meckes]

http://www.bamboocraft.net/workshop/data/2/thumbs/1Mvc-183f.jpg (http://www.bamboocraft.net/workshop/showphoto.php?photo=665)
- Aged Moso Splitting open. (Phyllostachys edulis, syn P. pubescens)

POP! PoP! Did you hear that sound?
That's bamboo splitting it's sides open with laughter!
It's releasing tensions acculmulated during life,
and making preparations for the bamboo hereafter!

It's not odd, when a culm splits open,
that it can actually can make bamboo stronger.
Like opening your arms to hug someone,
the `arms' open up, and the back becomes tighter.
So too, bamboo gains renewed strength after splitting,
providing new uses for the crafter to ponder.

At harvest, the life of bamboo is renewed,
full of purpose, applications and uses.
But there culms a time when bamboo can relax,
and return to earth as food for future generations.

Mark

[Derick]

Mark: I have read with EXTREME INTEREST this article and commentaries of yours regarding Splitting.
Nobody that I know of has ever analyzed seriously the Splitting..I think that you are in the middle of an activity CRAFTS which many people over the world have done and are doing more and more.
Commentaries like yours should be gathered and eventually generate a pamplet etc etc.
Congratulations,
Derick Calderon
Guatemala

[Derick]

Kevin I just came back from a trip in Europe and I found that people accept cracking or splitting in Bambu in fact you cannot get furniture with splits from any other material
..So perhaps it is part of education to accept such matters. However of course there are many pieces of Bambu which do not split if you dryburn the pieces.

Regards
Derick Calderon
Guatemala

[Terry]

Hello Kevin and Mark
I read your letter just when I was coming in to write about the same problem.
I was fast curing some of the "Henon" I had harvested in East Texas in the rafters of my barn where it can get very warm.
When a few days ago I walked out to the barn which had been closed up that day and the first thing I noticed was the smell of smoldering bamboo. Frightened, I immediately thought that I might have laid some on and electrical connection and shorted it out.
I spent the next few hours frantically looking for the source of the smell with no luck, I inspected all of the bamboo still , I found nothing.
By that time the strong acrid smell was gone since I had opened up both ends of the barn..
The next couple of days a friend came over and was working in the barn when he came running up to the house all upset saying "Man, I think somebody's shooting at your barn "
So I go down there and when I go into the barn , it does sound somewhat like a 22 shot being fired.
It did not take long to figure out that it was the bamboo.
So I figured I left it up there too long.(about 4 weeks).
Terry Crumpler

[kevinrl]

Thanks for all of the encouragement guys.
I have been working with boo for over 15 years , but that has all been material that has been harvested while still alive and then cured.
I accept small hairline cracks, hey we import furniture from the tropics of the Philippines, to our sometimes dry climate.
This situation is different, the boo has died in the clump, and then harvested.
Then after it has been worked it simply explodes.
Kevin