Löfdal - Bamboorods
Bamboo
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About Bamboo
Ever since anglers started using rods, they have been searching for the perfect rod material. The first rods were made of solid wood because it was readily available and easy to work with the primitive tools available at the time. As travel and trade spread over an ever-larger part of the world, more exotic materials were discovered that were both lighter and more resilient. Indian Calcutta Cane (Gigantochloa macrostachya) from Assam and Chittagong became popular and was used well into the 1930s by rod builders.
Sometime around the turn of the last century, the first bamboo logs were imported from China to the United States. These were of the species "The Lovely Bamboo" (Arundinaria amabilis), other names are Cha Kan Chuk, Tea Stick Bamboo, Tsinglee Bamboo and Tonkin Cane. The bamboo comes from Kwangtung province and grows in an area around the Sui River, which is used to float the bamboo to the processing sites. This area is the only one that really suits the "wonderful bamboo" to grow on. Several attempts have been made to grow it elsewhere but it just doesn't want to.
Arundinaria amabilis grows extremely tall, 12-15 meters in about 2 months. What makes bamboo so special is that it grows almost as straight as nails, has roughly the same diameter throughout its length, the distance between the rings is large, and the resilience is greater than in any other natural material. Many say today that the bamboo that was produced before the US trade embargo against China in the 1950s was of better quality, this is not true. The bamboo of today is just as good, if
not better, because the bamboo is cared for in a better way
Some Myths of Bamboo Rodmaking and Beyond
By Peer Doering-Arjes, Ph.d.
