How to Build With Bamboo: 19 Projects You Can Do at Home

Book Description
Bamboo is "green gold" of the future, with 60,000 species throughout the world, and literally millions of uses. No other plant seems to have as many possibilities; it is used for food, construction material, fuel, flooring, decoration, furniture, and more. Today, bamboo is charging into the western mainstream, and exploding in popularity. How-To Build with Bamboo: 30 Projects includes step-by-step illustrations on building your own bamboo items, with 30 unique projects including a plant holder, picture frame, porch swing, candle holder, privacy panel, lampshade, chest of bins, luggage rack, and much more! With a section on the history, philosophy, and environmental advantages of bamboo, plus tips on finding bamboo locally and growing your own, How-To Build with Bamboo: 30 Projects is an incredible resource on a major modern renewable resource. Joseph Scheer has been designing, producing, and marketing his bamboo creations for almost twenty years. With a thorough background in science, he has been a teacher, researcher, technician, and inventor, as well as a builder, contractor, sailor, and artist. He has built, furnished, and now markets a bamboo-appointed vacation home in Rincon, Puerto Rico.


From the Inside Flap
Filled with terrific gift-giving ideas, one-day projects to do with children, and practical home improvement projects, How to Build with Bamboo welcomes you to the wonderful world of bamboo. Each page shows you how you can bring this ancient plant, with a long tradition as a building material, into your own home. Make a lamp, chest of drawers, or even a candleholder and jewelry box. Bamboo is just as versatile outside the house as it is inside the house. Building a fence, creating a waterwheel, and designing your own garden gate are fun outdoor projects with bamboo. Getting started is a snap-the book's simple color reference coding allows you to pick a project from easy to advanced. Tools and materials needed are clearly noted before you even begin, and diagrams with easy step-by-step directions make crafting simple. How to Build with Bamboo will delight the imagination and intrigue the mind.


From the Back Cover
Bamboo will surprise and delight you with its many uses. Easy-to-create projects include: Fountain Burmese ball Porch swing Jewelry box Outdoor fence Once hard to find, bamboo is now readily available at local home and gardening centers.


Excerpted from How to Build With Bamboo: 20 Projects You Can Do at Home by Joseph Scheer. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Candleholder: Easy Perfect for an outdoor party, or as a dining room centerpiece, this candleholder is easy to make. Summer flowers add scented delights! Step One: Cut a piece of bamboo at a 90º angle just below a node (the section where two pieces of bamboo are joined), and again 10" above the node. This is the top of your bamboo. Step Two: Draw a circle 3" above the node. Step Three: Make an incision into the top end of the bamboo. The knife will initiate a split. Split the bamboo until it reaches the drawn circle. Make a second split on the opposite side of the stalk. Step Four: Repeat splitting into ¼" sections, 1/8" sections, 1/16" sections, and so on until the width of the bamboo between the splits is about ¼" wide-like slicing a pizza. Step Five: Pull out and remove every other section of split bamboo at the pencil mark. Step Six: Fit a glass candleholder within your bamboo, and place a candle in its base. Step Seven (optional): For an extra touch, arrange flowers within the bamboo slots.


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To most North Americans, bamboo is a fairly exotic material, but in many parts of the world it is common. Surprisingly, many varieties can be successfully grown in temperate climates, while others are available via mail order. This is fortunate for do-it-yourselfers who may want to experiment with bamboo, which has a number of attractive properties, e.g., its lightweight strength and interesting appearance. Scheer, who has been working with bamboo for 20 years, presents techniques for working with this grass and instructions for 20 projects of varying difficulty, including lamps, a box, a rain stick, earrings, a screen door, a bed frame, a water wheel, and a fence. Common woodworking tools can be used, but owing to bamboo's unique structure and tendency to split, specific techniques are needed to cut, drill, or join it together successfully. The instructions are clear and should help readers master the quirks of working with bamboo. Larger public libraries should consider, especially if bamboo grows nearby or is readily available. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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