Bambusero - Bamboo Fences and Furniture
by on 01.29.05
Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Mark Mortimer’s business; Bambusero, makes fences, screens, furniture, water features, carports, indeed pretty much whatever you’d like from bamboo. The Soto fence, shown here, is constructed with slats of Henonis bamboo. The lovely colour will naturally fade after extended exposure to the sun. But the fence should give a 12 -20 years of attractive life, before the bamboo becomes dry and brittle, and might need to be replaced. Or you could wait until the greeness of the bamboo turns to a straw colour and becomes porous enough to allow stains, lacquers, etc to adhere. ::Bambusero [by WM]
The biggest problem with slicing up bamboo like this is that it wears much more quickly. Using older, larger pieces in the way that several kitchen goods and flooring companies have done is much, much more sustainable.
Ah, but this is just one of the styles of fences they do. Visit the website and see the the other fences, made indeed from full stems.
Thanks very much for posting my products WM. You seem to be doing great stuff over pond there in OZ with the Bower. Keep it up.
Ben, I beg to differ as to the sustainability issue. I harvest the bamboo myself, then split them and weave them into the Soto panels. The fact that it is split actually makes the fence last a bit longer than using the whole culm. This is because once the whole culm develops a split, water can get in, and will stay inside it, weakening it from the inside.
As for processing the culm into strips, using slitters, then sanders, planers, then glueing them up, baking them then sanding them again into shape, is much less sustainable than me using my muscle power to split the culms with a hammer and a blade. Processing bamboo using power tools is very energy intensive compared to my little old muscles.
Also, splitting a culm of diameter 70mm into 4 quaters say, giving me four splits of 40mm width each, which together covers an area of 160mm is a better use of resources than using a single culm to cover an area of 70mm. Also none of the wastage of processing.
Cheers,
Mark Mortimer
www.bambusero.co.nz
Worrying whether some bamboo wears quickly is like saying blue jeans tend to fade over time...
that is why it is beautiful...keep up the great work mark and tree hugger for highlighting bamboo and bamboo artisans...
we are are currently involved in turning a former military base in china into a bamboo village...so we will use some of mark's contemporary touches in helping us make it look a bit more current...
timothy ivory
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