Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

What about the rest nof the rods?... they will make excellent flutes as well....
Are there less risk of cracking if they are shorter?

Chris,

In addition to the high-humidity approach to save the clan...   Are you planning to close up the cracks on the split stock?  Might as well, eh?  Wet towel, high humidity, and binding (and possibly epoxy or urushi or superglue)...  you might still end up with some very nice, heavily-scarred flutes.   (Not that anyone wishes for it, but this is an opportunity for valuable crack-fixing practice.)

Good luck!  And I feel your pain.  Bamboo doesn't grow on trees in Vancouver, either. 

-Darren.

Thanks guys! Thank you dstone for sharing my pain.. when a bamboo cracks, a piece of me cracks with it.
I migth try and repair the culms though, that's good idea.

The culms are not too young. The thinner walls are on the parts that grows higher from the ground.
They come from china. They have been here in Sweden since May, but now the air is getting a bit dryer as the winter is coming.
They might have disliked riding on the car in a surfing board bag...


Is there a good way to keep the whole 245cm culms moistorized?
It feels a bit drastic to make desicions on about 45 flutes right away.

Could I store the long ones some way and keep the moist?
Maybe if I put them in huge plastig bags and leave soaked spunges inside a smaller open bag inside the bigger one, on both sides?

Thanks...

Toffe wrote:

They have been here in Sweden since May, but now the air is getting a bit dryer as the winter is coming.

Not that I have much experience with raw bamboo, but given that I live in Finland, we get pretty much the same kind of winter as you have in Sweden. When I bought my first flute, it was november in here. At first everything seemed fine, but after taking the flute out a couple of times (in a bag, but still), few small cracks developed on it. Thanks to binding there was no damage apart from cosmetic flaws, but I still freaked out quite a bit.

Ever since that I have tried to figure out ways to prevent damage to bamboo in crazy climates like we have here. Although most people talk about moisture, temperature seems to also play an important role. What helped for me is to keep the bamboo somewhat warm at all times. Avoid sudden changes in temperature and make sure that the place you are using for storage isn't very cold. If possible, try to have something covering the bamboo. I have had some success with bags that have few layers of cloth and something thicker between them.

Again, I'm by no means an expert on bamboo, but these things made the difference for me in similar conditions to what you are most likely experiencing.

ps. Where in Sweden do you live?

Tonight 4 more long culms cracked.. I'm freaking out here.

So I'm cutting them up in smaller pieces. Leaving them outside is no option here, since may get below -20 degrees celsius here.
I moved them to a cooler room, with no radiator. I put them on the floor where it is more cold.

If I put a bowl with a wet sponge in the room next to the culms, would that be of any help?

I cut up some of the culms in pieces around 1 meter. They are now in a black plastic bag (not entirely closed, the bag is a bit too short).
How can I keep the humidity high inside the bag without risking water damage to the culms?


// Chris the Swede

In your first post you said one cracked on the first night, had you already cut off the root end section ?
Then you said you cut off a 2.0 root end and the upper section cracked, did the root end section you cut off also crack ? If not, I wonder why not.
I have pieces in a very dry location, also fairly warm, and they are not cracking.

I suggest you call the supplier and tell them your conditions and get details of how they were stored previous to you picking them up, Then see what differences there are. I am curious as to how gradual changes are affecting them, I think there is a more radical change that has occured.
I am not sure that moisture is the answer either, too much can also cause cracking.
Kel.