Making a Bamboo Fish Mouth Joint

by Guadua Bamboo Costa Rica

This video from the Technology Institute in Costa Rica shows a basic technique in bamboo construction: the fish mouth joint. Notice the backslash of the drill in the beginning of the video. Guadua bamboo is a thick walled timber specie, so be careful when you try this at home.

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Making a Bamboo Fish Mouth Joint

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Jan 30, 2010
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That is a really time consuming way to cut a fishmouth
by: robertooroark@gmail.com

I think that building with bamboo "in the round" is only suitable for the very poor, or the very rich...it takes too long to do it right, not to mention the waste from constantly trying to make the joints acceptable to "high end aesthetics", or it looks like crap.....I use a Stationary motor with a tapered grinding stone, when I have to do it, but the dust is noxious, and it still takes too long....
My solution has been to make the rough joint bearing points as close as possible, and to use wood plugs as you do, but to make the joint pleasing to the eye, I just use spray foam (I know, that's not too eco appropriate) which stabilizes and fills the gaps, then trim it with a sharp razor, and paint it to match....I comes out looking like your pictures, and stops bugs from attacking the end cuts, and takes a fraction of the time to do....I also use wine bottles foamed into the ends of poles for bearing on the ground, or connecting two poles into one longer one...sometimes I put a few LEDs in the ends on the ground to make a cool way to keep from stubbing your toes in the dark...

Jul 27, 2010
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Bamboo Joints
by: Stephane

You hit the nail on the head with your comments. Much has to be done to improve the way round bamboo poles are joint together. I would love to see some pictures of your work. Feel free to share them in our forum.

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