Chapter 11 Bamboo Poles

Li Junge trotted all the way out of the village, turned onto a small stone road, passed through several paddy fields, and came to the bottom of a hillside.

The slopes of the mountain are full of bamboo forests, and there are many varieties of bamboo, westerly bamboo, hard-headed yellow, ci bamboo, and water bamboo in the bamboo forest. There is a small house in the bamboo forest, there is a dam in front of the house, there are a lot of bamboo poles that are being dried on the left, there is a small stool on the right, next to the small stool is a low wooden long case, which is full of knife marks, and there is a firewood knife for cutting bamboo on the top of the case, and there are many bamboo utensils that have not been braided next to it.

Under the eaves, there are also a lot of bamboo poles hanging upside down on the left, and a stone is tied to the bottom of each bamboo pole, which is pulled heavily, and it is straightened while drying in the shade.

On the right wall hang a variety of woven bamboo utensils.

As soon as he got on the dam, Li Junge shouted: "Uncle Craftsman, is Uncle Craftsman at home?"

A middle-aged man walked to the door with a large enamel cup in his hand, a blue tunic with beep cloth on his upper body, black pants on his lower body, a pair of straw sandals on his feet, and a large blue cloth apron tied around his waist.

"Hey, hey!" Li Junge hurriedly shouted, and ran forward to close the door: "Uncle Craftsman is me, Piwa, I'm coming to visit you, what's not welcome!"

The middle-aged man gestured and said: "Your baby is a night owl, it's not good for Lao Tzu to see you, go quickly, I don't want to see you." ”

Li Junge salivated and said with a smile: "Uncle Craftsman, you really see the outside, hurry up and give me the cup, I ran all the way from the uncle's house, hey, I'm thirsty." After speaking, he went to grab the cup in the middle-aged man's hand.

The man hurriedly protected the cup: "Go away, go away, I won't give you a drink, you deserve to be thirsty!"

Li Junge simply hugged the middle-aged man and shook it. "Oh, my good craftsman, take out my things, but I heard from my little cousin that you have been in front of him a few times. ”

The man hurriedly protected the cup from the waves and said, "Eh, what are your things, I haven't given them to you yet." ”

Li Junge said with a smile: "Oh, aren't you just thinking about the bamboos in my house and my uncle's house, cut them! Go to my house tomorrow to cut them! Cut down the uncle's family too!"

The man didn't buy it, and sneered: "It's like I don't know how to choose bamboo in winter, and I will cut it tomorrow!"

Li Junge smiled again: "That's thinking about the few wild bamboos I found on the mountain, so let's talk about it, we will go into the mountain tomorrow and point out a few places to you." ”

The man said: "Come less! I have a lot of work these days, but I don't have time to accompany you to the mountains." ”

Li Junge's eyes rolled and said: "I said Uncle Craftsman, it's boring for you to push back like this, I want to think about it, could it be that this thing is still flawed, are you embarrassed to take it out to meet people?"

The man's eyes widened, and he was about to get angry, when he suddenly sneered again: "What's the matter? You want to provoke me? It's not so easy to be fooled!"

Li Junge ran out of tricks, and bowed his hand to the man again and again, and said with a smile: "Ouch, Uncle Craftsman, I just don't have a trick." After speaking, he pointed to the door and said: "In this way, as long as the things are given to me, I will lie at your door today and admit the punishment until you are happy, what's the matter!"

The man finally couldn't hold back, laughed, and said: "Your baby is really Erpi, this is relying on me, right?

"Alas, mom is waiting for your words!" Li Junge jumped three feet high and hurriedly drilled into the house of the craftsman's house.

On the wall of the inner room were three long shelves, each of which contained a light brown flannel bag, which Li Junge took down and opened one by one, and inside was a bamboo fishing rod.

Each of the three rods has four sections, and when plugged together, each becomes a complete fishing rod, which is called a "knot rod" in China and a "parallel rod" in Japan.

The birthplace of Japanese bamboo poles is Hashimoto City, located at the northeastern tip of Kishu, Wakayama, in the middle of the Kii Peninsula, bordered by Osaka to the north and Nara to the east. A variety of traditional handicrafts are produced there. Among them, the Kishu hand pole, which has been designated as the No. 1 traditional craft in Wakayama Prefecture, is famous all over the world and is called "Wakatsu".

The reason why Kishu and rods, which completely maintain the traditional handmade craftsmanship, can be praised by the world as "the best of the rods" will never fail, not only because it combines practicality and ornamentality, but also because the birth of each Kishu hand rod is poured into the painstaking efforts of several generations of Kishu rod craftsmen.

Since ancient times, China has had a saying of "a rod and a moon", which refers to leisurely fishing and enjoying the chic style of life. The realm pursued by the ancients is also fascinated by many modern anglers. However, with the continuous development of modern scientific rod making, many fishing rods, fishing tackle and production techniques with artistic value are unknown and have disappeared.

Li Junge was very concerned about this matter, he once saw a photo of Mr. He fishing from an old magazine, in which Mr. He held a fishing rod with the same standard as the "Japanese rod", and knew that this rod-making technique was not unique to Japan.

So he worked with Uncle Craftsman to try to restore the rod-making process from China to China.

However, things are not so easy.

The first is the selection of materials, and the selection of bamboo materials must be in winter.

Winter is the time of year when bamboo grows the slowest and contains the least amount of water in its flesh. Bamboo harvested in the harsh winter has the characteristics of thick flesh and strength, which is a necessary condition for making poles.

Li Junge walked all over Bifeng Mountain, only to find a few suitable bamboo forests in the snow, and after two or three years, he selected twenty or thirty suitable bamboos among thousands of bamboo forests. It took another half a year to dry the bamboo suitable for making hand poles.

handed over the bamboo to Uncle Craftsman, but he also handed over his troubles to Uncle Craftsman.

To make handmade fishing rods, the light materials are bamboo, wood, glue, pulp, silk, lacquer, each type of material is divided into many subcategories.

According to the use and toughness requirements of each section, the rod body generally has more than two kinds of bamboo material selection combination.

According to the different strength needs of jade mouths, knots, internodes, etc., craftsmen adopt the method of winding silk for reinforcement. Improper length and strength of the silk winding will lead to insufficient strength, which will lead to the cracking of the rod body and interface when used.

It is also necessary to develop a variety of lacquers, which are used for point joints, lacquer silk, base for the rod body, and paving.

The glue is used to bond silk, knots, and shanks.

Even if the material is ready, there is still the process next.

The carefully selected bamboo needs to be arranged outdoors for several weeks or even months according to the state of the bamboo, and then moved to the workshop for a long time to dry naturally, and then used to make poles after the water in the bamboo evaporates and is completely dry.

At this time, the flexibility, elasticity, bending and thickness of the bamboo will directly affect the next process, which requires the author to have a keen eye and rich experience.

The selection process of bamboo is also the place that best reflects the personality and taste of different craftsmen.

The next step is fire roasting, which can not only adjust the bamboo to a straight point after the combination of selected raw bamboo after fire roasting, but more importantly, tighten and fine-tune the fiber of the bamboo through fire roasting, so as to make the bamboo more strong and tough.

Then there is the hollowed-out, interpolated combination of hand rods, which will generally be closed into two sections. Except for the tip of the pole and the second section, the remaining sections must be hollowed out. Section 1 is included in Section 3 and Section 2 is included in Section 4. And so on.

Hollowing out the bamboo knots requires the use of a special drill bit. Depending on the inner diameter of the bamboo, the thickness and length of the drill bit used are also different.

When drilling bamboo joints, it is very difficult to master the strength, and the slightest negligence often wastes the previous efforts, so the rod maker is required to have superb skills and delicate techniques.

In order to make the knots of the previous section and the jade mouth of the lower section have a good fit, the knots must be cut into a certain V-shaped angle.

The size and smoothness of the angle need to be tightly matched with the jade mouth, so that the whole rod is integrated to ensure that the joint part is evenly stressed. Strength is not affected.

Then wrap the silk around the rod.

When threading, it is necessary to achieve uniform strength and complete seams to lay a good foundation for the subsequent lacquering.

The silk is hand-woven from the highest grade natural silk. This type of silk has the characteristics of high temperature resistance, fine and flexible texture.

Next, paint for the first time.

The first lacquering refers to the reinforcing process on the surface of the jade mouth, joints, internodes, etc., which are wrapped with silk silk in the form of lacquering.

Lacquering can not only improve the luxury of the rod, but more importantly, it can play a role in waterproof protection.

These lacquers are all natural tree lacquer treatments.

The lacquered lacquer pen is also very special, and the width, wool quality, and hardness of the lacquer pen are very particular.

The number of coatings is usually six to eight times, and each coat is preceded by repeated sanding and natural drying.

This is followed by the chiseling of the jade mouth. The jade mouth that follows the previous section must also be chiseled into a V-shaped angle that coincides with the knot.

When chiseling, the chisel is first rotated inward slowly in stages, and after the basic shape comes out, the inner wall of the jade mouth is filed flat and polished with rod-shaped steel files of different thickness specifications to achieve the same angle as the joint insert.

After that, it is processing of the grip.

The grip is the most common part of the angler and the rod, and it is also an important part of increasing the counterweight to adjust the center of gravity of the rod.

The inside of the handle is mostly made of hard wood or bamboo, while some craftsmen use the traditional method of wrapping paper.

The materials used to decorate the grip on the surface are very rich, such as abalone, snakeskin, antelope horn, shark skin, gold and platinum, feathers, bamboo pieces, egg shells, cotton thread, wisteria, etc., and sometimes even inlaid with jewelry and jade according to the requirements of the angler.

Next up is the most difficult part of crafting, and the most retrieval of the craftsman's level: making the pole tip.

The pole tips are made from six to seven years of fine bamboo species.

A section of bamboo with a thick bowl mouth can only be used as a small area of the back sun, and a section with a diameter of about 18 cm can only be made into two to four poles at most after processing.

To make the pole tip, the bamboo is first cut into square rods, and then cut into bamboo chips one by one using a special knife.

Each set of slices of bamboo is exactly the same, like orange petals, which can be put together as a whole.

Four or six pieces of bamboo are glued together with a special glue to form a perfect rod, which is then planed to perfection.

In the process of planing, the angle and direction are adjusted, so that the slight tonality of the rod perfectly matches the whole rod body.

This process is the most demanding and difficult part of rod making. It's all about experience and skill.

Then there is the lacquering.

The process completely maintains the traditional hand-made lacquer method - "wipe" lacquer.

The "wipe" paint method is to apply the paint evenly to the rod body with your fingers, and then gently wipe it with a special cloth to cover the surface of the rod with a thin layer of paint.

After natural drying, then use different mesh sandpaper to repeatedly polish and wipe and then paint again.

After five or six primers, a dozen more than a dozen brushes are applied using a more precise varnish.

After each painting, the rods must be placed in a special "paint room" to dry naturally. The size of the paint chamber is generally two meters in length, and the width and height are about 60 centimeters.

This type of paint is completely different from ordinary paints in the way they are hardened.

While ordinary paints are hardened and dried by the natural evaporation of solvents contained in the paint, this type of paint is dried and formed by a chemical reaction with moisture in the air, and a good coating can only be obtained under specific temperatures and high humidity.

Therefore, craftsmen often nail gauze to the inside of the "lacquer room" and spray it with water appropriately to maintain the humidity of the air in the lacquer room.

After the rod body is painted, it can achieve the effect of acid resistance and water resistance. And it can increase the hardness and corrosion resistance of the surface of the rod body. The gorgeous and delicate lacquer color can highlight the luxury of the bamboo pole.

Eventually, the lacquered rod will be fine-tuned again, and once the posture is perfect, the craftsman will engrave or brand the rod.

A bamboo fishing rod is officially completed.