At present, the main methods for making bamboo stick incense are as follows:
1. Traditional handmade fragrance pouring technique.
2. Manual powder coating and mechanical bucket making.
3. Pressure (hydraulic, pneumatic) machine strike. Using the first and second methods to produce products below four millimeters, the grain production is generally higher than the third method, and the labor intensity is highest in the first method. The bamboo stick incense produced by the third method is more uniform, smooth, and of consistent size as long as the ingredients are appropriate. I think the following points should be noted.

1. Reasonable ingredients should be made based on the characteristics of different adhesive powders used, because different adhesive powders have different gums and properties. The same adhesive powder comes from different origins and has different viscosities from different batches. If the same ratio is used for all, problems may occur at times. For example, it is easy to stick together into clumps, rot heads, feet, flesh, etc. Making incense does not necessarily mean that the stickiness of the powder is better. The ingredients should be stirred evenly. Although some masters can use their experience to make each incense evenly spread, if not mastered properly, it can easily cause areas with a lot of wood powder to melt into water, and areas with a lot of powder to stick together, resulting in uneven and uneven shapes of the incense. The resulting fragrance is not smooth enough.
2. Master the base powder, add meat powder, and cover the flour with the strongest adhesive force of the base powder, followed by meat powder, and cover the flour slightly weaker. If the adhesive force of the meat powder is stronger than that of the base powder, it is easy to rot. If the adhesive force of the cover flour is not enough, it is easy to peel off the flour.
3. The choice of bamboo heart. In traditional bamboo stick making, there is a saying of "one bamboo, two ingredients, and three skills". It is best to choose bamboo sticks with uniform size, without bamboo green or smudged bags. Bamboo sticks with bamboo green are not easy to powder on one side of the bamboo green, have poor adhesion, and are prone to rotting fragrance. The smudged bags are mostly soft and prone to insect infestation.
4. Control of draft: When lowering the water tray, the entire bamboo stick and incense should be evenly drained. After the water tray is released, it should be inverted to allow the water to flow back evenly before adding flour, avoiding large heads, tails, and bellies.
5. Selection of Cover Flour: Cover flour should have sufficient fineness to make it smooth and fragrant. If it is used to make color fragrance, light colored wood powder or bamboo powder should be selected to make the color more vivid and bright. After mixing, it should be sieved.
Article source: Fragrant bamboo sticks http://www.qianzhuhang.com