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).
One of the themes in this thread is reminding people that it's not actually bamboo, it's a bamboo composite--sort of like plywood. I doesn't work without petrochemical glues.
I think it's fairer to say your build is 40%-ish bamboo composite. When we're calling it bamboo we're doing that industry's greenwashing marketing for them.
I noticed you use the Planet Waves tuners. I love those as well, they're much more practical as they cut the strings for you. I wonder why they don't make them in more traditional colors, or why other manufacturers don't provide similar solutions. Everyone else makes just regular and locking tuners, not the locking-and-cutting tuners.
For a performing amateur musician, the ability to change your string quicker and without having to carry extra tools is certainly beneficial, and people spend a lot of time fretting about much less important details in their guitars.
I do like the current trend in youtube guitar videos talking more about playability, usability and reliability, and doing things like switching jacks or nuts, instead of endless pickup sound comparisons.
May I ask what you paid in the end for the bamboo you used? I went down the same rabbit hole some time ago and in the end went with oak as it was a lot more affordable (for my student budget back then).
I always thought that hardness is most important in a fretboard, is bamboo hard enough for this? I have a Parker guitar with a glass composite fretboard (carbon glass they call it) and it’s the best part of the guitar for playability.
This was interesting in light of an interview I was just listening to yesterday, a CBC podcast [1] talking about the benefits of mass timber (glued wood) for large highrise building construction.
There were two guests on, both sounded like environmentalists, with the first one (Michael Green) saying that mass timber was
"currently the best tool we have to address climate impact and in the building materials for a large building"
while the second guest (John Talberth) was arguing:
"The idea that we can cut down our forests and turn them into two by fours and build our way to a stable climate is absurd, and it's just another one of these false narratives of big timber corporations are using to get us to buy more of their product and continue to subsidise their record profits",
and Talberth advocated Bamboo, mentioning it multiple times as an alternative. It kind of went back and forth a bit with Mr Green saying
"Bamboo, for instance, is not structurally a material that can actually satisfy the demand of three billion people that need a new home because it doesn't build large buildings"
and Mr Talberth saying
"Believe it or not, bamboo can actually be put together in the structurally with high structural integrity beams to make taller buildings"
It kind of left me wondering who was right... though Mr Green (an architect) sounded like someone with actual experience making buildings, where as the Mr Talberth (an economist) sounded like he might have been doing a bit of ill-informed wishful thinking about Bamboo.
Seeing the process here gave me a bit more perspective on the discussion. Given the labour involved and the fact that you are working with 20mm x 5mm cross-sections of bamboo, I can see how it would be extremely expensive to build a large building out of bamboo, and the $300 euro price tag on a sheet of plywood at the bottom of the page added more confirmation that it's not going to be a practical replacement for large-scale building.
We are not cutting down forests to make buildings. We get plenty of lumber to do that from sustainable tree farms. We are cutting down forests to get land (mostly to use for non-tree agriculture)
John Talberth runs the Center for Sustainable Economy, an environmental advocacy organization in Portland, Oregon. He is an old general from the PNW "timber wars" of the 1990s, directly involved in pursuing the spotted owl injunctions. He has long been opposed to intensive management of native conifer forests. It's amusing to me to hear him advocating for harvest in somebody else's back yard. I suppose that's been the subtext the entire time, with so much harvest volume having migrated to the US southeast following the spotted owl injunctions.
At the bottom of the OP link is the price for a 4x8' sheet of bamboo plywood. It's listed for 295 euroos or $342USD. I'm not sure there is a 'regular' wood sheet that is even close to that cost. It's truly a specialized product and unless there are more economical bamboo sheet goods, no one would ever build with this.
When thinking about “carbon stores” - it is significantly more preferable to turn managed forests into manufactured wood products for buildings and furniture (where the CO2 gets functionally stored and then possibly tossed in a landfill far in the future) to turning those forests into wood pellets to be burned as biomass.
Managed forestry has the ability to, relatively trivially and particularly when compared to other “carbon sequestration alternatives” lock in decent magnitudes of carbon as we figure out our energy system.
Particularly helps when comparing to other building material options (bricks, concrete, steel all very energy intensive and not decarbonized yet).
Really neat article, love things like this on HN. I thought this was really interesting:
> A bamboo stem reaches its maximum height in just a few months and shall not grow taller or thicker over time. In the following 4 years the fibers will "lignify" and get their extraordinary mechanical properties in terms of hardness, strength, density.
That seems pretty fascinating to me. Are there any other plants/trees that grow like that? I mean, from my naive knowledge, trees go wider with a new ring every year.
Most trees won’t grow that fast (well almost nothing grows as fast as bamboo). Usually height of a plant or tree is determined by the available shade (more shade, the more the tree will try to climb above it), and available water. Less water generally means shorter, and more (easy) sun usually means shorter, though there is a huge genetic element of course. Some trees will collect significant water from rain or fog when it’s hard to get water up the tree from their normal transport methods (like redwoods) because of their height.
A normal tree (which is slow growing) typically will get taller and wider each year until it starts maxing out something like water transport, or dies due to disease and competition from other trees.
The rings you are referring to are generally gathered from the base of the tree as that is the part most likely to grow (for sure). If you go to the top of the tree, it’s a bit harder to tell what has been going on.
And the ring itself is formed when the tree stops growing as part of the yearly seasonal cycle.
Paulownia or Empress/Princess trees are one of the other top contenders from a growth/carbon sequestration standpoint[0].
They're one of the only trees that use C4 photosynthesis (more commonly employed by grasses like bamboo) than the C3 process most trees use. This lets them grow up to 20ft/6m per year, and they're able to be harvested commercially within five years.
They're also good from a woodworking perspective: traditionally, parents of daughters in southern Japan would plant a kiri tree on the birth of a daughter and then cut it down to make chests, drawers, and boxes for their daughter's marriage ceremony.
I has a higher strength:weight ratio than balsa wood, and is pest and rot resistant.
Other fun fact: they resprout from the stump after cutting, similar to coast redwoods.
There is more glue than bamboo in the bamboo products, but thaks to the marketing department they are ECO, and friendly and yada yada... Just look at the proces to get decent thich board/beam.
Engineered lumber (MDF, OSB, glulam... all of them actually) also involves the same glues and chemical treatments used in bamboo, and both use formaldehide-based glues which are known carcinogens.
My standing desk top, a Fully Jarvis, is made from bamboo.
Comparing the illustrations in TFA to the thing I'm leaning on, I think it is constructed of a core of side-pressed pieces, with a thin layer of plain-pressed pieces giving the working surface and underside.
I've had it for < 1 year. It is a little soft, and shows dents and scratches where I set down moderately heavy objects with too much force, but it still looks nice. I guess I can think of the marks as evidence of actual use and life.
Almost all wooden surfaces will show dings and dents from heavy objects. Denser woods with a matte finish will show them less of course, but it's inevitable.
If it makes you feel any better my solid "hardwood" workbench from Gladiator (purchased at Lowes) I use as a standing desk also has some dings and dents! I also figure it's part of the charm.
Same here (same desk). Whenever my kids drop something heavier on the surface, it leaves deep marks. It's the most easily damaged surface we have at home. Does look nice where there are no marks :)
This particular post is about making plywood sheets out of raw bamboo. But there is also work happening on mass timber applications of bamboo. For example a company called "Rizome" (https://rizomebamboo.com/) is working on LVL and LSL bamboo panels. One of their founders wrote a post about structural applications of bamboo last year (https://medium.com/rizome/bamboo-skyscrapers-eded5b234726).
I posted this lower down as a comment, but some might be interested to know what specific glue is being used:
Most manufactured wood building materials contain one of these two types of formaldehyde-based glues:
* Phenol-formaldehyde (PF)
* Urea-formaldehyde (UF).
Its water resistant properties make phenol-formaldehyde glue more effective for production of exterior wood materials. Urea-formaldehyde glue, cheaper and less tolerant of excessive moisture, is most often used for interior materials including wall paneling, flooring and cabinetry.
In its natural state, softwood lumber emits a tiny amount of formaldehyde. While PF-glued products typically emit 10 times the formaldehyde outgassed by softwood, UF resins can release at least 100 times more formaldehyde than the natural wood.
A typical particle-board subfloor made with UF glue can release enough formaldehyde to result in a 0.3 ppm concentration of formaldehyde in a room. For healthy people who are not bothered by formaldehyde, the levels in softwood lumber and PF glue are usually not considered a serious health problem.
UF glue, on the other hand, has been implicated is causing people to become hypersensitive; a good reason for healthy people and sensitive people to avoid UF glues altogether"
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?
Most of the non-cellulose elements (the ones nneeded for life) are in the outer layers of the tree.
Modern forestry machines strip off the bark and a little of the phloem (the living layer) in situ.
But yeah, there is a slow loss. Partly made up by the micrometeorite dust that falls everywhere, and in some places by dusts from other places. For example, the Amazon rainforset is replenished from the Sahara.
Deciduous forests are better at this. Deep tree roots break down rocks in the subsoil, recovering minerals that way, and leaf fall creates a realtively rich soil. Undisturbed virgin deciduous forests with deep soils have near 100% mineral recycling. The micrometeorite dust makes up the rest.
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.
Depending on what trees are grown, and the specific ecology and geology, it can and does. However this typically occurs over several generations of planting, each of which are 2--4, or more, human generations.
James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State opens with a description of how "rationalised" scientific forestry in Germany lead to a precipitous decline in the health of the soil and ultimately yields of timber, but over the course of 150--200 years. He's largely citing Richard Plochmann, Forestry in the Federal Republic of Germany (1968), and Chris Maser, The Redesigned Forest (1988).
With credit to the other posters here, who do give correct answers as to how forestry is less destructive to the soil than other crops,....
and assuming a clearcut/monoculture approach to tree farming (because the comp to foodcrop agriculture also ignores regernerative/permaculture techniques)
forestry is massively disruptive to the soil, because it obliterates the ecosystem/community which allows forests to produce so much biomass.
also, because the harvest cycle is measured in decades rather than years, the soil destruction also happens at a slower rate. Doesn't mean it isn't as destructive per harvest cycle, just that the cycle rate is slower.
Bamboo is surprisingly expensive considering it is a C4 photosynthesis plant that grows very fast in the tropics and is amenable to fully automated harvesting.
Anyone know why? Why is pine nearly 10x cheaper despite turning less light into carbon, growing in places with less light, requiring semi-manual harvesting and having a far longer plant-to-harvest time?
Somewhat related, there are these amazing homes in Bali made of (treated) bamboo. I believe they are treated by soaking them in a boron solution which results in better resistance to decay and insects.
Related - cool "circular economy" company in Vancouver that collects chopsticks from restaurants and, using a similar process, makes some pretty amazing stuff: https://chopvalue.com/
Land use at least is much more efficient when harvests are every 4-5 years instead of every 40-80 years with spruce or fir. Birch can be felled at around 55 years.
Normal wood is kiln dried similarly to bamboo, and glued panels are done in a similar fashion.
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?
I've never worked with bamboo plywood, but the product on the website looks like it should be compared with 20mm 3 ply wood panels made from cut hard wood instead of the cheap ply wood made from peeled wood.
So a better comparison would be something like [1], which is a lot more expensive than standard birch plywood.
[+] [-] g0gzs|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] NoImmatureAdHom|4 years ago|reply
I think it's fairer to say your build is 40%-ish bamboo composite. When we're calling it bamboo we're doing that industry's greenwashing marketing for them.
Cool guitar!
[+] [-] Gravityloss|4 years ago|reply
I noticed you use the Planet Waves tuners. I love those as well, they're much more practical as they cut the strings for you. I wonder why they don't make them in more traditional colors, or why other manufacturers don't provide similar solutions. Everyone else makes just regular and locking tuners, not the locking-and-cutting tuners.
For a performing amateur musician, the ability to change your string quicker and without having to carry extra tools is certainly beneficial, and people spend a lot of time fretting about much less important details in their guitars.
I do like the current trend in youtube guitar videos talking more about playability, usability and reliability, and doing things like switching jacks or nuts, instead of endless pickup sound comparisons.
[+] [-] fho|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twobitshifter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mromanuk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uglycoyote|4 years ago|reply
There were two guests on, both sounded like environmentalists, with the first one (Michael Green) saying that mass timber was
"currently the best tool we have to address climate impact and in the building materials for a large building"
while the second guest (John Talberth) was arguing:
"The idea that we can cut down our forests and turn them into two by fours and build our way to a stable climate is absurd, and it's just another one of these false narratives of big timber corporations are using to get us to buy more of their product and continue to subsidise their record profits",
and Talberth advocated Bamboo, mentioning it multiple times as an alternative. It kind of went back and forth a bit with Mr Green saying
"Bamboo, for instance, is not structurally a material that can actually satisfy the demand of three billion people that need a new home because it doesn't build large buildings"
and Mr Talberth saying
"Believe it or not, bamboo can actually be put together in the structurally with high structural integrity beams to make taller buildings"
It kind of left me wondering who was right... though Mr Green (an architect) sounded like someone with actual experience making buildings, where as the Mr Talberth (an economist) sounded like he might have been doing a bit of ill-informed wishful thinking about Bamboo.
Seeing the process here gave me a bit more perspective on the discussion. Given the labour involved and the fact that you are working with 20mm x 5mm cross-sections of bamboo, I can see how it would be extremely expensive to build a large building out of bamboo, and the $300 euro price tag on a sheet of plywood at the bottom of the page added more confirmation that it's not going to be a practical replacement for large-scale building.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-oct-20-2...
[+] [-] gizmo686|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hcurtiss|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giarc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clomond|4 years ago|reply
Managed forestry has the ability to, relatively trivially and particularly when compared to other “carbon sequestration alternatives” lock in decent magnitudes of carbon as we figure out our energy system.
Particularly helps when comparing to other building material options (bricks, concrete, steel all very energy intensive and not decarbonized yet).
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|4 years ago|reply
> A bamboo stem reaches its maximum height in just a few months and shall not grow taller or thicker over time. In the following 4 years the fibers will "lignify" and get their extraordinary mechanical properties in terms of hardness, strength, density.
That seems pretty fascinating to me. Are there any other plants/trees that grow like that? I mean, from my naive knowledge, trees go wider with a new ring every year.
[+] [-] lazide|4 years ago|reply
A normal tree (which is slow growing) typically will get taller and wider each year until it starts maxing out something like water transport, or dies due to disease and competition from other trees.
The rings you are referring to are generally gathered from the base of the tree as that is the part most likely to grow (for sure). If you go to the top of the tree, it’s a bit harder to tell what has been going on.
And the ring itself is formed when the tree stops growing as part of the yearly seasonal cycle.
Bamboo doesn’t have rings.
[+] [-] navi0|4 years ago|reply
They're one of the only trees that use C4 photosynthesis (more commonly employed by grasses like bamboo) than the C3 process most trees use. This lets them grow up to 20ft/6m per year, and they're able to be harvested commercially within five years.
They're also good from a woodworking perspective: traditionally, parents of daughters in southern Japan would plant a kiri tree on the birth of a daughter and then cut it down to make chests, drawers, and boxes for their daughter's marriage ceremony.
I has a higher strength:weight ratio than balsa wood, and is pest and rot resistant.
Other fun fact: they resprout from the stump after cutting, similar to coast redwoods.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia
[+] [-] reportingsjr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batushka3|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nuerow|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|4 years ago|reply
What glue is used, and how does it break down when exposed to the elements?
[+] [-] colinb|4 years ago|reply
Comparing the illustrations in TFA to the thing I'm leaning on, I think it is constructed of a core of side-pressed pieces, with a thin layer of plain-pressed pieces giving the working surface and underside.
I've had it for < 1 year. It is a little soft, and shows dents and scratches where I set down moderately heavy objects with too much force, but it still looks nice. I guess I can think of the marks as evidence of actual use and life.
[+] [-] etrautmann|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roland35|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muro|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoImmatureAdHom|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ofey404|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaysea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fblp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rexreed|4 years ago|reply
Most manufactured wood building materials contain one of these two types of formaldehyde-based glues:
* Phenol-formaldehyde (PF)
* Urea-formaldehyde (UF).
Its water resistant properties make phenol-formaldehyde glue more effective for production of exterior wood materials. Urea-formaldehyde glue, cheaper and less tolerant of excessive moisture, is most often used for interior materials including wall paneling, flooring and cabinetry.
In its natural state, softwood lumber emits a tiny amount of formaldehyde. While PF-glued products typically emit 10 times the formaldehyde outgassed by softwood, UF resins can release at least 100 times more formaldehyde than the natural wood.
A typical particle-board subfloor made with UF glue can release enough formaldehyde to result in a 0.3 ppm concentration of formaldehyde in a room. For healthy people who are not bothered by formaldehyde, the levels in softwood lumber and PF glue are usually not considered a serious health problem.
UF glue, on the other hand, has been implicated is causing people to become hypersensitive; a good reason for healthy people and sensitive people to avoid UF glues altogether"
More details here: http://www.healthyhouseinstitute.com/hhip-780-Formaldehyde-B...
[+] [-] dan353hehe|4 years ago|reply
In my mind I can see bamboo lumber just made with the Hardened Wood process being extra “green” as no glue would be required.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28945312
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
Why isn't bamboo wood a bigger industry? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18844258 - Jan 2019 (98 comments)
Bali’s 'magic' bamboo homes [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18521724 - Nov 2018 (78 comments)
Then there were these:
Bikes built from Bamboo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2846074 - Aug 2011 (2 comments)
Bamboo Bikes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=683085 - July 2009 (4 comments)
From bush to bike - bamboo bicycles - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=682329 - July 2009 (1 comment)
Bamboo Bike Maker Grows His Frames, Bonsai Style - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=316325 - Sept 2008 (1 comment)
[+] [-] willvarfar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuatoru|4 years ago|reply
Modern forestry machines strip off the bark and a little of the phloem (the living layer) in situ.
But yeah, there is a slow loss. Partly made up by the micrometeorite dust that falls everywhere, and in some places by dusts from other places. For example, the Amazon rainforset is replenished from the Sahara.
Deciduous forests are better at this. Deep tree roots break down rocks in the subsoil, recovering minerals that way, and leaf fall creates a realtively rich soil. Undisturbed virgin deciduous forests with deep soils have near 100% mineral recycling. The micrometeorite dust makes up the rest.
[+] [-] coryrc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|4 years ago|reply
James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State opens with a description of how "rationalised" scientific forestry in Germany lead to a precipitous decline in the health of the soil and ultimately yields of timber, but over the course of 150--200 years. He's largely citing Richard Plochmann, Forestry in the Federal Republic of Germany (1968), and Chris Maser, The Redesigned Forest (1988).
[+] [-] mellavora|4 years ago|reply
and assuming a clearcut/monoculture approach to tree farming (because the comp to foodcrop agriculture also ignores regernerative/permaculture techniques)
forestry is massively disruptive to the soil, because it obliterates the ecosystem/community which allows forests to produce so much biomass.
also, because the harvest cycle is measured in decades rather than years, the soil destruction also happens at a slower rate. Doesn't mean it isn't as destructive per harvest cycle, just that the cycle rate is slower.
[+] [-] hyuuu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crackercrews|4 years ago|reply
I wondered if this number was a typo. Quick research shows that presses can produce tens of thousands of tons of pressure. [1]
1: https://thelibraryofmanufacturing.com/presses.html
[+] [-] londons_explore|4 years ago|reply
Anyone know why? Why is pine nearly 10x cheaper despite turning less light into carbon, growing in places with less light, requiring semi-manual harvesting and having a far longer plant-to-harvest time?
[+] [-] blunte|4 years ago|reply
https://greenvillagebali.com/
[+] [-] mhb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schainks|4 years ago|reply
Note, little to no bamboo lumber used.
I think these kinds of homes are an excellent idea for the billion or two people living in suitable climate for it.
And maybe a bamboo lumber building can survive in harsher places, too. We will need to experiment to find out.
[+] [-] F_J_H|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JAlexoid|4 years ago|reply
They're not even saving energy in doing this. Mulching those chopsticks would probably be much more energy efficient.
[+] [-] flimflamm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Maxion|4 years ago|reply
Normal wood is kiln dried similarly to bamboo, and glued panels are done in a similar fashion.
Plywood is in a way more processed than bamboo.
[+] [-] leoedin|4 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] yarcob|4 years ago|reply
So a better comparison would be something like [1], which is a lot more expensive than standard birch plywood.
[1]: https://www.arbeitsplatten-shop.de/epages/61566463.sf/de_DE/...
[+] [-] bserge|4 years ago|reply