Bamboo Shishi Odoshi (Deer Chaser)

We are ready to add water...tomorrow, enough for tonight.

I will need to go through a balance exercise by cutting slices off the end of the main tube until the thing see-saws reliably. More to come...

Last month made a plastic prototype one out of PVC pipe which actually works.

Bought some bamboo from Bunnings

Paying attention to where the nodes are I am cutting the main pieces, two uprights and the water tube.

The base is made from a fence paling.

Bamboo is tough and difficult to work with, even drilling holes is messy and painful. To reduce splintering I used masking tape and even tried duct tape but still had to clean up with a sharp Stanley knife.

Besides being tough and difficult to work with it’s also hard to glue due to the waxy outer coating. I tried scraping off the skin around some test joints to improve the bond with little success.

I put the project aside for a while hoping to return with some fresh thoughts.

Pottered around a bit more and decided that the only joint that needs to be glued is the top water spout – with hot glue. The rest can be simply bound with hemp cord that keeps that natural look.