Bamboo Joint [July 2009]

30mm x 9mm. Bamboo, lens, camera parts, rubber, metal mesh, aluminum

Bamboo Joint is so called, because it is made from a section of bamboo cut from the joint part of the lower half of a Shakuhachi flute. No actual flutes were harmed during the making of this piece. My friend Tom Deaver, a Shakuhachi flute maker from Nagano prefecture in Japan, gave me some 'reject' half finished flutes last time I was there.

The joint of the flute is made by reaming out the bore of the bottom section of the flute, and gluing in a piece of smaller diameter bamboo that has been precisely turned down to fit. the insert sticks out by a few centimetres, and fits into a matching reamed out section in the top part of the flute when the flute is assembled.

The double-ring of bamboo visible in this piece is because it was cut from the section of flute where the insert is glued in place.


It uses parts from two identical watches, including the synthetic ruby watch jewels, along with a salvaged camera lens, rubber from a bike tyre inner tube (the black visible behind the camera parts), fine wire mesh (similar to what you find in a coffee press), and a machined out computer hard disk drive platter spacer ring.

The platter spacer serves to hold the back on, and also prevents the bamboo from splitting from changes in humidity.


the attachment point is a tiny cross drilled stainless steel socket-head screw. The piece is a similar size to most of my pieces - about the size of an australia 20c piece.