If you are handy with wood working you might consider building a PMQ (Poor Man's Quad) style bamboo rod from scratch. This is a 4 sided rod made with just two strips. The only tools required are a good sharp hand plane and a dial caliper, no planning form is needed.
The finished rod might not be as straight and true as a traditonal hex rod, since it is harder to compensate for the nodes with just two strips instead of 6. But they cast nicely.
Here are some links for more info...
http://www.bamboorodmaking.com/html/2_strip_quads.html
http://www.rodbuildingforum.com/inde...howtopic=15417
http://www.bamboorodmaking.com/html/pmq.html
http://www.rodbuildingforum.com/inde...howtopic=15461
I built my first one over just 2 weekends! The cane strips were generously donated to me by a board member. One of the fun things about a PMQ rod is that you can modify the action by additional planning or scraping after the rod is glued together, just the ticket for the guy who likes to tinker. Since you don't have much money invested in the project you can build several and see how the action changes as you modify the taper. Since I used strips that were already split and heat treated all I needed to do was straighten them and plane them to size.
Some folks use a simply wooden planning jig, but you can easily make these 'freehand' if you have a good flat surface to work on top of. I used a 4' long piece of oak baseboard trim on top of my dinning table forthe first one. You just plane off a bit, then check the progress with the caliper until the desired dimensions are reached.
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