Bamboo as a tonewood :)
 

Lol i personally thiink this might be ridiculously stupid...but just because im idle...what do u think bamboo would sound like if it was a tonewood???

Terrible, because it would have to be a composite of many pieces glued together. Having a solid piece of bamboo the size needed for a guitar would be physically impossible to my knowledge due to the physical characteristics of the plant. There just wouldn't be a way to get solid pieces that are big enough to make a guitar out of.

But those little pieces are perfect to put in red curry. :cool:

... yeah, but it sure looks nice on my floors ;)

I betcha Bob Taylor could do it. He might have already tried.

I know yamaha used to make a bamboo acoustic.

For bamboo flutes it is probably the best available , other possibilities might include the Asian Digeridoo..... binding materials . . . maybe we could be on to something here? Then again I am possibly less idle than you otherwise I would have given a more thoughtful answer:guitar:

there might be a scarcity issue with bamboo of sufficient dimensions, so you might also try here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...panda-ape.html

In skilled hands, bamboo has as much potential as any other non-traditional wood or material. Geometry is an issue to be overcome, as obviously any guitar parts will need to be pieced together, but again, with some ingenuity, a competent luthier would be able to exploit some of the more interesting properties of bamboo.

There are thousands of different bamboos, but one kind is known to be the strongest plant on planet Earth. Tonkin cane, the traditional material for flyrods, has a Modulus of Elasticity of 6.2 million PSI, which is about 15% stronger than the next few strongest species of tree, like Pernambuco, Wamara, Snakewood, etc, yet with a similar density of 70 pounds per cubic foot.

What kind of tone it would have is very difficult to estimate. Heck, if you read various wood threads in the general forum, you will see that there is not much consensus even on very well known woods, so there is little hope of knowing much more without actually hearing one. My wild guess is that the tonal variations would be very broad, as the Modulus of Elasticity (or more simply, stiffness) varies a great deal across bamboo species, so it would all come down to material selection, and construction methods, in other words, everything that goes into making a guitar. :)

I admonish myself for my idle flippancy:up:
http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/back...oo-guitar.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sa_iEwX3D0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqEfa9hAAMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP2pC...embedded#at=41
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqRqR...layer_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFg-6...eature=related

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...g/bamboob1.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...sg/bamboo2.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n.../bamboob1h.jpg

I owned the Yamaha. Maybe if they'd put a Sika top on the thing it might have stood a chance. But back sides and top? Didn't work so good. I affectionately called it "the Bowling Alley"
One;
What weighs more than wood? Glue. What do you use to join 25K chopsticks worth of bamboo together? 8 pounds of glue. It was a very heavy guitar.
Two;
the tone was BRIGHT! I tried to learn slide on it. The Star Trek theme sounded pretty good on it.
Three; Why a Rosewood headplate? Aesthetically it threw off the whole Funky theme.
It was a must have for a Yamaha collection. There was/is a reason folks are not searching for them like a 59' D18 lol

A hollow i.e raw bamboo section for the neck could be aesthetically :halo: appealing and a weight saver as well. A bit bumpy for slide but with a correctly measured selection of bamboo the bumps could replace the need for fret markers....

So do you you feel you were bamboozled?:)

Yup. The only thing missing on that guitar was bridge pins shaped like little bowling pins! Being laminated though I suppose you'd never have to worry about the dreaded "7-10 Split!" :lol:

It's hard to understand why a company that is supposed to know how to make guitars would use bamboo for the top as well. One trusts that prototypes were made, and surely those tonal problems just described manifested in them as well.

I don't think that Yamaha would fairly represent how well bamboo might perform as a tonewood.