Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

I had dug up about a dozen culms of the Chinese bamboo 'Moso'. A very interesting looking bamboo with a deer-velvet like covering on the surface. A blond colour, good diameter, dense and thick walled. Looked like a go, so after three or four months drying I pulled it out to begin making some Shakuhachi's. Most of the culms had two or three surface cracks, not all the way up but only good for firewood, but the few left were crafted into flutes, well two that is !
One I sold but the purchaser had trouble blowing it so it is being replaced, another was sitting in my studio waiting for some final tweaking. I came to it and did some blowing, now it had been sitting there for several months, happy as Larry, but after about 30 minutes blowing there was a loud sparking 'CRACK !', right while I was blowing, I could feel it open up in my fingers. A crack had sprung open from one end to the other.
It was quite a surprise and I can only assume that the moisture from my breath had entered the cells causing quite a pressure that the dry bamboo could not sustain. The flute had not yet been walnut oiled, whether this would have prevented the cracking, who knows.

I wonder now whether the flute that is being returned to me will also go the way of all the others.

Kel.