No shortcuts here!  Hand splitting bamboo, hand straightening bamboo and hand planing bamboo for classic fly rods is how I do it here!  If you saw your strips, and grind them flat, you are not getting your monies worth.  The goal of my classes is to get the students up to speed and experienced in the classic Garrison method of rod construction.  After taking my class, students cans buy the minimum of equipment, and produce a fantastic bamboo fly rod on their own.

Luke getting his strips arrow-straight for his bamboo fly rod

After much work, and oven tempering, the strips are ready for the planing forms!  Here Jim is getting ready to plane out the butt strips for his bamboo fly rod:

Jim is seeing his bamboo fly rod take shape

The rest of the week is easier.  All of the heavy lifting has been done by Wednesday!