Building a Bamboo Meditation Bench

This bamboo meditation bench was made using a combination of lidi (thin rods of bamboo) bundle, bamboo splits, and poles, which combine different techniques such as bending and lamination.

There are construction layers to this piece; the frame and its shell. The frame was started by drawing its shape on a piece of plywood and then banging a whole lot of nails (about one finger apart) all the way along. The next thing was while having glue, a hammer, and a whole lot of clamps on hand, splits were laminated to wrap around the nail wall, and once dried, the process was repeated and built to the height of the bench.

Crossbars were next and the top surface lidi spiral began. Because bamboo is not as flexible as rattan, we started from the outside in since I wasn’t sure how far we could push heat bending the bamboo to make the sharper curves towards the center.

The Mutik knife was one of the top tools used for this project from start to finish. Everything from cutting splits, and shaving uneven surfaces, to carving the lidi to fit smoothly. Some other tools required, beyond the basics, were a mask, gloves, planer, nail gun, heat gun, chop saw, palm sander, hammer, bamboo hammer (mallet), and a chisel.

Working with bamboo is such a pleasure and an amazingly versatile material to use. Bamboo will pop up to help you during your projects too! Little things like a broken piece of split can be used to apply the glue lam making it easy to apply a thin and consistent layer.

Of course, there are limitations that I was testing with lidi heat bending, pieces that were just about in the curve we needed, would get too hot and break pushing us to restart.

At the end of the project, the most rewarding part of the process was seeing the material take shape and structure. Being able to carve and manipulate the material to empower the bamboo to speak for itself was incredible. A simple change of species or thickness in the material would change the overall look entirely.