Bamboo Rods Making Tools: the ultimate list
To create a fishing rod from a piece of bamboo you need the following bamboo rods making tools.
bamboo culms of the type Arundinaria Amabilis. The culms
come from the Tonkin area and are also referred to as "tonkin bamboo". Like
mostof IBRA rodmakers I use bamboo specially selected by Andy Royer,
THE bamboo broker, who directly goes to China, select and ships them overseas. (Andy
Royer was present at the gathering in Sansepolcro in May 2008.)
A planing form in wood (or metal) for the first preparation of bamboo strips in an equilateral triangular shape. This form is also called parallel planing form and is generally in wood to keep price low. You can also make your own by cutting a small trench of 60° on one side and 30° and 60° on the on the other side. The one pictured below was kindly made for me by friend and bamboo rodmaking companion Luciano Oltolini, a furniture maker by profession now retired with an incredible easiness, rapidity and inventiveness at making tools and of course working with wood.
A Morgan Handmill can be used as well. The link takes you to the Waischenfeld Gathering's notes of my website where Swiss Bamboo Rodmaker Philippe Sicher showed it to all of us. I plan to write soon more extensively about this special tool.
A plane and Sharpening kit for the plane's blade is more than a MUST. It's vital. The blade should be of good quality steel, but if you cannot sharpen it...this is something of extreme importance. I am learning the trade and sharpening (like in hand-engraving) is 90% of the job. This is why I wrote an article on how to sharpen a blade. In a few dozens of rods time, I will certainly feel more at ease...
I am not an expert here but I would not start buying a Lie-Nielsen plane right from the beginning. A Lie-Nielsen plane is more a life-investment and I will certainly dream to own one when my skills get better. To begin with, I would certainly go for a good Stanley plane. Besides, most of my expert companions use one. I would also like to experiment with japanese planes one day, (and also with a mini-lathe to make my own seat-reels) but this is another topic...
A hot air oven. Among bamboo rods making tools this one is self- built. The oven is used for tempering the bamboo which consequently gets harder and more resistent. With the heat the "sugar" (the "starch" inside the bamboo) becomes like "caramel" and binds the fibers. Below you can see the oven made by Luciano Oltolini, who learned the craft with me. Below the oven the first planing form in wood -against the wall - and the metal planing form for the taper.
You can see the hot gun - which is used for both straightning the bamboo nodes as well as heating the oven - in front of Luciano's oven.
This is German Professional bamboo rodmaker Rolf Baginski's oven. The oven is vertically placed, as opposed to the oven above which is horizontally fitted on a wall. Below is an electric oven seen at the First
European bamboo Rodmakers Gathering, held in Sansepolcro, Tuscany (Italy)
in May 2008.
A caliper to check the TAPER of
the rod.
Rod building components:
Sand paper of different grit
Varnish for finishing the rod>
Other tools are perhaps "optional" like these self-built strip-binder made by Luciano's Oltolini. Very useful to keep the bamboo strips together for two important moments of
the bamboo rodmaking process: tempering and glueing.
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You
can notice from the drawing above that the planing form can be made
out of two wooden pieces joint together in the middle - so
that it will be easy to cut a 30° or 60° side - and that the edges are smoothed for
practical purposes - while planing you will get less chances to touch
the edge. (The picture below has been modified to allow you to better
see the bottom "60°/30°" side - the "spot" is high-lighted) 
