Making Bamboo Fly Rods

A bamboo fly rod is made of six strips of bamboo glued together to form hexagon photo below.

Making bamboo fly rods.

To schedule rod making instruction please email ron barch. Arrive with enthusiasm leave with your own hand crafted split bamboo rod. Join dozens of rod makers who have learned to make a split bamboo rod under the direction of angler craftsman ron barch. We re sure you ll enjoy your stay.

Although each step is described a number of details are not fully covered. The strips are triangular in cross section and since the rod tapers from handle to tip the triangular strips taper too the triangle is bigger at one end of the strip than the other. The protruding rings that occur on bamboo are called nodes and require quite a bit of work to flatten out before the bamboo can be used to make a fly rod this image courtesy of andy royer. I think that everyone would agree that we owe a debt to jerry foster who created the rodmakers site.