bamboo – Nothing In It

Having made the bamboo satchel, I still had one RÖDEBY bamboo thingy from IKEA. I’ve been using a collapsible box tote for the last few years to carry all my regular SCA stuff (papers and whatnot), and it is starting to show its age. I figure these bamboo things will be pretty durable over time, so maybe a more open-top design this time. This is much like the crates I used to make a lot of, but the fabric lining makes it a continuous surface inside. I just had to figure out the right size squares for the end pieces.

Bamboo Tote with Pine Board ends and a Rope Handle

The tote is assembled with glue and copper nails . The rope is attached by inserting it through holes I drilled in the pine board. There is no finish or anything other than what came on the RÖDEBY. Here’s what it looks like when I fill it up with my stuffs:

It is a little smaller than the fabric tote it is replacing, but that is OK. I often despair of how much stuffs I carry around all the time, so tighter limits are probably for the best.

This only took me an hour or so to put together, plus the time it took for the glue to fully cure.

More than ten years ago, I made a couple of small “boxes” (box1 box2) by wrapping bamboo sushi rolling mats around blocks of wood. Those two little boxes are still in use, and still going strong, so when I saw the RÖDEBY bamboo “armrest tray”, I knew just what I wanted to do.

The Roedeby comprises thirty bamboo slats that are bonded to a flexible canvas backer. I cut two 7.5 inch disks from pine board, and combined it with some hardware to make this satchel-

The bamboo is both glued and nailed to the pine disks, so it should be pretty sturdy. I attached the sling cord by drilling through the disks and then inserting the ends of the rope and tying stopper knots inside. the “latch” is a couple of brass cotter pins that are secured to the inner layer of bamboo and project through a couple of holes drilled in the outer layer of bamboo. In the above photo, the latch is secured with a small brass “lock” that I acquired at Pennsic a couple of years ago. Here it is open-

Bamboo Satchel Open, with Sake for Scale

You can see that there is quite a lot of space inside. I haven’t tried stuffing it, but I bet you could actually get 3 full-size bottles in there. It should be big enough for a small selection of tools, or a big lunch. I didn’t base it on anything I’ve seen anywhere, so I wouldn’t call it a medieval or Japanese woodworking project, but it’s a handy object that won’t be too disruptive if I carry it to an SCA event.