Bamboo Guitar

For the past couple of years I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen that I want to build a guitar out of bamboo. Well, I finally got around to starting the project. I’d already done some research into the manufacturing processes involved in making bamboo boards, and knew what I wanted for body and neck blanks, so I contacted several bamboo flooring factories around Anji in Zhejiang. Eventually I found one that makes boards to the appropriate specifications and were willing to provide me with small quantities. There are a few different ways bamboo is made into boards, but the kind I’m using is made up of long strips with a rectangular cross section laminated together. I ordered pieces of both vertical and horizontal lamination, and prefer the more “wood-like” grain of the vertical type. Stranded bamboo boards look even more wood-like, but weigh nearly twice as much as the already heavy laminated boards.

My friend Wang Qin, a luthier who makes basses under the name KuanChi7, offered to let me use his workshop and walk me through the process of making a guitar. He had templates for several guitars, but I wanted a Tele — its utilitarian simplicity makes it the perfect platform for testing different woods and hardware — plus I just like them. I downloaded Terry Downs’ drawing from TDPRI and modified it slightly, then had routing templates laser cut from 15mm acrylic. Anticipating possible weight issues, I made an additional template for routing Thinline-style chambers as well.

I decided to use 5mm thick vertically laminated pieces for the top and back, with a center section of 35mm thick horizontally laminated board. The picture above shows the body parts after being rough cut on the band saw. Next, we hollowed out the center section with a jigsaw:

Then, the jigsaw cuts were cleaned up on the pin router (sorry, no pictures), and the top and back were glued on.

To be continued …