Specimen of Edison Bamboo Filaments

Specimen of Edison Bamboo Filaments

These strips of bamboo have been cut and shaped using special tools. For use in lamps they would have to be bent into shape and carbonized. During carbonization the filaments would shrink to the size seen in the adjacent lamps. Some of these filaments are cut with broad ends for mounting on the lead-in wires using a copper plating technique. The deposit of copper can also be seen in some of the adjacent lamps.

In the earliest lamps the filaments were mounted using special clips and delicate nuts and bolts, but the copper plating technique proved to be much simpler.