I recently made a shakuhachi from bamboo.
When I applied a mixture of white spirit and varnish
to it (wipe on/ wipe off) to seal it, the bamboo
turned white i.e. milk colour.
I also poured this into the bore to seal the inside.
The flute sounds great, but looks $%£$%^ awful!
I suspect that the bamboo has oils within it,
that have been disolved out by the white spirit,
and this is the colour.
Now I have to fiqure out what to do with the finish
on this flute to make it look respectable.
In the meantime…
May I humbly, respectfully - ok - grovellingly - ask…
what do the wooden flute makers use to seal flute
bore with?
Bamboos exude much silica which is white.
In a growing grove you will see this as a fine powdery substance.
It is also embedded in the surface somewhat.
I wonder if this may help explain your result with the experiment.
Thanks.
I didn’t know that, and it prolly is the explanation.
Now if bamboo exudes silica, d’yer think we could
get one to grow silicon chips, then we could afford
to retire on the proceeds, and buy some instruments
instead of making them
My Olwell Bamboo doesn’t have a thing on the bore - although the exterior is polished nicely.
With timber flutes, some makers simply polish the bore - meaning it’s just wood. The maker of my flute, however (and the maker he learned from) seal the bore with superglue as strange as it sounds (and still manage to give it a mirror-finish). I’m sure there are many othe techniques, though what works for tropical hardwoods may not be suitable for bamboo which seems to be most applicable to you.
