i am finally ready to attempt to build a bamboo rod,what books would you recommend.and if you have such books would you be willing to trade on them.thanks joe

Bernie Elser and George Maurer's "Fundamentals of Building a Bamboo Fly Rod." Or the series of articles these gentlemen wrote in the Volume 4 RodMaker issues.

Get the book. It's great and you'll enjoy it very much.

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The bible of bamboo rodmaking is A Master's Guide to Building A Bamboo Fly Rod by Hoagy Charmichael. It was written about Everett Garrison's techniques and has been the standard for almost 40 years. The Lovely Reed by Jack Howell's is very good, as is Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods by Wayne Cattenach and the Maurer/Elsner book Tom mentioned. You can build a rod from scratch with the help of any of these. The book by Howells is probably the hardest to find as it is out of print and in great demand, so prices are high when they come available.
john

All the above mentioned titles are the way to go. However masters guide by Hoagy Charmichael is a bit tough to follow if your new to bamboo terminology. My suggestion would be to start up a library, start with some easier reads like books by ray gould and wayne cattanach, also with these books your build up a good taper archive which will allow you to build just about any rod out there. Another Suggestion if your more a visual learner, take a look at Golden Witches building videos. They now come in DVD format. "Building Bamboo Blanks", and "Finishing Bamboo Rods". Russ does a good job explaining the steps of building in the dvd's but be warned.... he leaves a few things out.
The first thing you'll realize about the craft is everyone does things differently. Thats why it will be benficial for you to build up a library to compare and contrast which steps you will use to build the best bamboo rod possible. Its EXTREMELY ADDICTING i think youll have a lot of fun with it!
Keep your irons sharp!
Kyle Caldwell