Recently Ralf Ladda and I visited Walter Brunner, an internationally known rodmaker, in Austria. He was a very kind and informative man who was willing to share his knowledge and expert advice on bamboo rodmaking. His shop, situated in Steyr in Austria is a Bamboo rodmakers paradise.  I am sure that the methods he uses are not only used by him, but they do differ from the usual rodmakers ways. Walter Brunner is 74 and has been making rods since the second world war. He designed rods for Hans Gebetsroither and  Charles Ritz at the beginning of his career. He has been a professional rodmaker for a very long time.

Heat Treating:  The culm is split by hand and then the nodal dam is removed with a disc sander. Then all the strips are strapped to a solid metal pipe. The metal pipe is then hung on a slow revolving hook and an electric oven consisting of two elements about a foot in height and mounted either side of the pipe is moved up and down parallel to the culm by a motor and chain setup while the culm is rotated. The entire (split) culm is then heat treated until a certain brown tone is achieved (it is a very light color). I suppose the process is a bit like electric flaming.

All treated strips are kept in a  warm box at 40°C.  (Stuart Moultrie)

A couple of years back I bought some cane that had been heat treated as a whole culm (It had a check split in it, but nothing else).  The cane was beautifully toned and needed no further heat treating.  I made a couple of fly rods and a spinning rod for a friend from it and the only problem I saw, was that this stuff planed like IRON!  It was tough!  For hand planing, I don't think I'd use it again, but if I did have a power mill, then I wouldn't have to worry about the extra aches and pains of hand planing it and would give it another shot... still have a bit of it laying around somewhere, and at the rate I'm going on it, my power mill will be perfected sometime close to the end of the next decade or two, so maybe someday I'll try it again! *S*  (Bob Nunley)

For heat treating I have access to a large bread baking oven. Getting close to this point with my first rod.  My question is, should I stay with the typical heat treating times or reduce the time since the oven does not lose more than a couple of degrees when opened?  (Peter Van Schaack)

Go with the typical time, whatever that is. As for a couple of degrees to or fro, it does not matter.  (Carsten Jorgensen)

For some years I used cure my cane in a large wood-fired, 150 year old brick oven owned by some friends in a village near my  home.

It had the huge advantage of never varying much in temperature as the thermal inertia represented by a couple of tons of brick and  steel  is immense,  added  to the  fact that  bakers are semi-nocturnal animals who are pretty well finished with their ovens by 0700 hours. The temperature was monitored by about 20 thermal probes distributed around the oven, so was pretty reliable.

Disadvantage mainly centered around the fact that I would sit around and eat pastries and drink coffee while the cane cooked. The amazing inflatable rodmaker!

I must admit that I am not as precise about heat treating as some of our more expert builders, but for me the sort of average treatment times seemed to be fine.

I now have a personal oven made from insulated metal ducting, with a fan forced oven heating element with the heat distribution randomized by a series of baffles. It works well, is shit boring, smells bad, and there are no cream filled escargots, croissants, or cream  buns to wash down with latte.

I am probably going to live a lot longer, but frankly, who cares!

Stay with the baker! In fact, when I  think about it, that is pretty good advice in any of life's little crises - just stay with the baker!  (Peter McKean)