Tiki Central / Other Crafts / Building With Bamboo - Structural
Post #213199 by mbonga on Tue, Feb 7, 2006 12:11 PM
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Tue, Feb 7, 2006 12:11 PM
I like it! That last PDF file looks definitive! The first site looks more historical, and the pics are harder to see, but is also cool. None of the documents mention the possibility of threading the bamboo poles like beads, I don't think, although that would require putting a hole through the center along the length of every pole. I'm thinking of those plastic fold-out toys (Hoberman Spheres) that look like geodesic domes that can be compressed into tiny balls. Also, I didn't see any recommendations about overall structural shape that would prevent such accidental folding/collapse in say a high wind. Surely that's a topic modern architects & engineers must have considered many times with regard to frame structures. Geodesic domes are supposed to be extremely sturdy, but they aren't very Polynesian-looking!
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/mathematics/dome/dome.html Around 1975 my sister told me about taking a drive through the Bonsall area of north inland San Diego County, back when that area was mostly green rolling hills, and of a large bamboo frame structure being built there, just off the road, like a project by college students. I think it was only temporary, and maybe was an architecture/engineering class or an arts & crafts festival. The people were climbing all over it like monkeys as they were building it, she said, and I think anybody could join in the building. But when I recently asked her about it, she couldn't even remember having seen it, much less any details. :( Anybody have any clue to what that might have been about? That always stuck in my mind as an extremely fun project, a great social event, fun for kids and all ages, and somewhat educational, too. Educational monkey bars, so to speak. Add to that my puerile desire to someday recreate the Enchanted Tiki Room at my own residence, and my love of bamboo in general, and my interest in building with bamboo becomes significant. :) P.S.--One caveat: I once gathered some bamboo poles from somebody's front yard in Florida, set out by the trash, after they trimmed their stand of bamboo. I let the poles sit in the corner of my living room for a few months, waiting for them to dry out. I noticed the culms seemed to keep dropping a lot of sawdust onto the carpet. Then one day while in the living room I heard the sound of light rain but it wasn't raining outside. Upon investigating the source of the sound, I discovered it was coming from the bamboo poles. Apparently there was a profusion of bugs inside the wood, eating it away, and producing all that sawdust I'd been seeing on my carpet. Needless to say, those poles quickly found themselves in the trash again. I hadn't heard about that problem before or what (if anything) can be done about it, but it's something to be aware of. Maybe they were ordinary termites (although I lived in a cinder block apartment then), or maybe some garden pest, which is maybe why that gardener cut those culms in the first place. P.P.S.: Per Internet references I just found, I think they were powder post beetles. Links about powder post beetles, especially in bamboo: [ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-07 12:30 ] [ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-07 15:56 ] [ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-07 16:07 ] [ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-07 22:07 ] [ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-08 17:34 ] [ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-13 18:40 ] |
