Alright, let me start out by mentioning that this is ALLLLLLLLL thanks to dayoldstubble. You can find his original bamboo brush here. After I had talked to Rudy Vey about having one made (unfortunately Rudy was unable to find quality bamboo to use...So of course I just ordered some of his awesome brushes anyways ), I found that it was time to attempt making one myself. I figured it couldn't hurt to send a PM dayoldstubble's way and thankfully he not only replied but handed me detailed instructions on crafting such a brush, he also was kind enough to let me know where he got all of his supplies.
Equipped with that information (and a little chat with my wallet that we were gonna have to put him in the game, no more warming the bench) I went to ordering the necessary tools, materials, etc. as well as attempting to figure out what knot I wanted to use.
My bamboo finally arrived in the mail a few days ago (my god shipping was more than the wood itself lol);
So, first things first I got out my calipers and began measuring the inside width of all of the poles to try and find a couple with good brush sized holes. I found ones in 18mm, 20mm, 22mm and 26mm. The poles are not perfectly round and the inside diameter ranges on all of them, but I chose one that also had rather thick walls so that I could take some sort of circular grinder to it and widen where the knot will sit (this is the one that I claim is 22mm which is actually not quite that wide). Then I cut 12 inch long sections of each pole (this would make it easier for me to heat treat using both a hand held torch and my oven);
In the picture above you can see on the left side is what the "raw" bamboo looks like and on the right side I had begun using my torch. The first step was really to heat it up (start killing the sugars and starch) and get the grime off the poles, they were quite dirty but once the sugar started leeching out it was easy to just use a rag to wipe both the stuff coming out of the bamboo and the grime off. In the next picture you can see the left side hasn't been touched and the right side has all of the grime off and the flame is starting to work it's magic and get rid of moisture, sugar, starch, oils, etc. The little spot that looks lighter is getting more towards being complete and the next step from there is turning it the brown color you want as well as some little burns (which gave the piece I have finished some very nice contrasts);
So it took me a while to go from that to this next picture, but mostly it involved slow, even, burning of the bamboo and wiping it off in between each "pass." Basically wiping off the stuff that comes out makes it easier to sand (thank you again dayoldstubble ). This particular foot long segment was a little more burned than I would have liked it to be, but we'll see how it turns out once I sand it all down ;
You can also see how in that particular piece of bamboo there is like a little indent that runs along it, I thought it would be kind of cool and give the final brush some texture, but as you can see it ended up getting pretty burnt during my passes with the torch. I went even lighter on it and it still ended up like that so like I said, I am gonna have to see how it turns out .
So the next step is sanding which I will post in a new reply to this thread just to keep things organized.
Just in case the mods see this I am gonna post a couple replies to my own thread here so I can kind of keep all the information on this in the first three or four posts in the thread to keep it a little organized and what not. If you need me to change it please just shoot me a PM and I will edit it all into this first post and then delete my replies .
Equipped with that information (and a little chat with my wallet that we were gonna have to put him in the game, no more warming the bench) I went to ordering the necessary tools, materials, etc. as well as attempting to figure out what knot I wanted to use.
My bamboo finally arrived in the mail a few days ago (my god shipping was more than the wood itself lol);
So, first things first I got out my calipers and began measuring the inside width of all of the poles to try and find a couple with good brush sized holes. I found ones in 18mm, 20mm, 22mm and 26mm. The poles are not perfectly round and the inside diameter ranges on all of them, but I chose one that also had rather thick walls so that I could take some sort of circular grinder to it and widen where the knot will sit (this is the one that I claim is 22mm which is actually not quite that wide). Then I cut 12 inch long sections of each pole (this would make it easier for me to heat treat using both a hand held torch and my oven);
In the picture above you can see on the left side is what the "raw" bamboo looks like and on the right side I had begun using my torch. The first step was really to heat it up (start killing the sugars and starch) and get the grime off the poles, they were quite dirty but once the sugar started leeching out it was easy to just use a rag to wipe both the stuff coming out of the bamboo and the grime off. In the next picture you can see the left side hasn't been touched and the right side has all of the grime off and the flame is starting to work it's magic and get rid of moisture, sugar, starch, oils, etc. The little spot that looks lighter is getting more towards being complete and the next step from there is turning it the brown color you want as well as some little burns (which gave the piece I have finished some very nice contrasts);
So it took me a while to go from that to this next picture, but mostly it involved slow, even, burning of the bamboo and wiping it off in between each "pass." Basically wiping off the stuff that comes out makes it easier to sand (thank you again dayoldstubble ). This particular foot long segment was a little more burned than I would have liked it to be, but we'll see how it turns out once I sand it all down ;
You can also see how in that particular piece of bamboo there is like a little indent that runs along it, I thought it would be kind of cool and give the final brush some texture, but as you can see it ended up getting pretty burnt during my passes with the torch. I went even lighter on it and it still ended up like that so like I said, I am gonna have to see how it turns out .
So the next step is sanding which I will post in a new reply to this thread just to keep things organized.
Just in case the mods see this I am gonna post a couple replies to my own thread here so I can kind of keep all the information on this in the first three or four posts in the thread to keep it a little organized and what not. If you need me to change it please just shoot me a PM and I will edit it all into this first post and then delete my replies .