About he same time I started building strip boats, I also purchased some bamboo strip furniture from a local craftsman. The bamboo in question is called colihue, it is not hollow, which makes it easier to turn into strips, I guess.

So I became interested in using it as a core material, and searched for reading material on the web. The most interesting stuff I found was rod-building, because it uses our tools and has its own very tight tolerances. Check out the link below for a detailed series on how to build a bamboo fly rod. It may give you an indication of the things you can or cannot do to bamboo. I kind of gave up on the bamboo-boat idea when I read about the "power-fibers" concept. Interesting, though...