I saw in walmart's art section sell bamboos and bamboo strips for decorations. They got black bamboos too.


Anyone who has no access to bamboos, now can get them there for less!

Also I meant to ask if anybody have made a rod using walmart's strips ? They seem very nice strips already.

If you are looking for some bamboo to practice splitting with, then I'm sure the Walmart stuff will work fine. You could also manage a PMQ from it to practice planing. if you are going to make hex rods, then I would drop the $30 or so for a piece of high quality cane.

You'd have to look it over carefully. Also maybe add a few thou each number on the taper. I made a PMQ out of a 3" diameter culm I got at Rona, and it worked great, but it was meant to be a 4 wt, came out more like a 1 wt.

But if you're just doing PMQs, then why blow bigger bucks on high end bamboo?

Ken

Don't dis PMQ's! They are good rods, very functional, and if finished with proper care, quite attractive. While my first PMQ was built from a bamboo tomato stake that I got from the local Home Depot, I had reason to believe the stake was the tip end of a Tonkin cane pole, as indicated by this picture of the tomato stake under a strip of Tonkin cane. Notice the comparable thickness of the dark strip of power fibers on each.

If you purchase one 12' pole of Tonkin cane, you can probably make 10 to 12 good quality PMQ rods from it.

Im new and do not know what the weight /ratings on the rods. What are 4wt and 1wt ? .... thickness or flexibility of the rod ?

I got some real good tonkin rods from a local bamboo forest. They got blown over by wind and dried for months atleast. Very solid and weathered dried poles ready to be made into some high quality poles.

But I need help to make a decent planning first.