Hi Guys

Just posted this on another forum also. Thought you might be interested to see what I have been up to. Just finished this up for a fishing store here in Zurich. Super fast action with a very stiff tip. Casts a country mile. I played around with the bamboo ferrule a little and instead of having one female, I made it as two females and one very happy male spigot, this way there is no step up to the ferrule, also I was able to do only half of the swell that I usually would do and take the rest off the spigot. It has had the hell casted out of it by a bunch of guys and is being used by the store owner for his master fly fishing course and the ferrulle is showing no signs of letting up or the spigot breaking.

The one in the drying cabinet at the moment has no swell whatsoever, is based on a CC de France hexroded to a one piece and made as a three piece using precision carbon rod for the spigot, just waiting on the stripping guide to finish it off, the one on the bench at the moment is a star hollowed version.

Thanks for lookin.

Very interesting concept. If the spline wears, just replace it. I like it. Great looking rod too.

Lead on!

Wayne

Like Wayne said, interesting ferrule. Love the design of the very low swell and the clear wraps on the ferrule.
I really would like to cast such a rod

friedrich

Now, that really is a *streamlined* bamboo ferrule. I'm quite amazed at what leaps of progress this (I previously thought) vintage technology of building flyfishing rods out of split sticks of bamboo is making.
Look at the boorrule (we call it a ferrule just for traditional reasons, right?). First there were sleeve connections, then swellled and then streamlined (still with a swell, but much more elegant) connections and now this, the ultimate, almost homogenous connection of two pieces of the rod. This thing, I would really bet, gives a smooth, uninterrupted action no graphite rod comes reallly close too. kudos.

How do you change the taper, when you change it to a one piece?

To change tapers to one piece I just chuck them into hexrod and chage the number on pieces to one holding the stresses constant
So far I havnt had any nasty surprises.

Will post some pictures of the latest one with no swell whatsoever as soon as it is finished

Nick

Thanks for posting Nick. Any chance we can get a step by step tutorial on how you do it? Do you have to have a hand mill to make the connection?

Most excellent . I have never been a fan of Bamboo ferrules due partly to the over sized swell. I would love to learn the process for building your style. That is one beautiful piece of art. Does it have to be done with the hand mill or will a standard set of planing forms work?

Thank you,
Pete

Wow.... fantastic work


Regards Bastl

Very nice work nickh

This bamboo rod is a beauty.

sweet!

incredible ... drooling all over the keyboard

Excellent Nick!

How is your ferrule holding up?

If I understand it correctly, you did swell the area around the ferrule junction just a little bit, correct? The reason I ask is I made a couple test sections like yours without any swell and the male slide was just too small and brittle. I swapped it out with a piece of graphite but couldn't get a fit that I was confident would hold during casting. I then tried to get a small piece of hollow graphite to put inside the female for purchase and some extra strength but I can't seem to find anything of the right diameter anywhere in town or online.

W-O-W!

What a technical and artistic feat!

Compliments from a beginning builder.

Gary

Hi guys

The ferrule is holding up just fine, the guys have been double hauling a whole line, three times a week without any problems so far. The only signs of wear are that at the corners of the ferrule the clear white silk is going a little white again but I dont see this as a problem, its just the ferrule stretching a little whilst doing its thing. The rod is 75" long and at 45" from the tip it is .225", I wanted a wall thickness of .040" but wanted to keep the swell low so only made the swell .020" and took the other .020" off of the spigot which left me with .185" for the spigot. I made it 3.92" long. I glued it into the but end with ferrule tight which eliminated most of the play and also if it breaks I can just heat it up, take the broken piece out and stick in a new one. Couple of minutes at the most. There is a little bit of "stuff" inside the female end which makes the ferrule fit perfectly. It almost pops when you take it apart, and you have to pull it apart, it wont just come apart.

Have not had time to finish the carbon ferrule rod yet, been too busy in the shop.

Nick

nickhughes@canesplitter.com

That is AWESOME!
I have never seen that before!
I am amazed!

I think you have something there. I never seen a joint so clean looking. Makes me look at metal ferrules in a different light now.
Super nice job! ........Ed

After months of hard casting the ferrule eventually gave in, the male spigot snapped clean in half at the middle.
No other damage to the females whatsoever. I am going to try making the spigot again with a carbon core or even
making the whole thing out of carbon. just have to figure out how to use the hand mill to cut a hex out of a round
carbon rod.
Anyone have any ideas?

Somebody with a mill and indexing head would make them without any problem at all. Of course it wouldn't be considered hand made, which is a big issue with some builders. I buy my ferrules so I would be happy to buy carbon fiber spigots.

Hope you get it perfected and post a tutorial on it. That is the cleanest joint I have ever seen on a rod. Again beautiful.

Pete

I have managed to cut a pretty good hexagonal section out of a round carbon rod on the my handmill.
The carbon seems to be much stiffer and stronger in comparison to the original bamboo section, I could break the bamboo section with my hands
but not the carbon. Hopefully this will do the trick.
Reckon its still hand made cause I cut it myself

Now if only it would stop raining I could take it outside to test it

Nickh,

I'm excited to hear how the carbon spigot works out! Was the original bamboo spigot difficult to remove?

Mark

No. It was very easy to remove, I intentionally used ferrule tight to glue it in with so all I had to do was heat it lightly and it popped right out.

Hi Guys

The carbon spigot works a treat. I have casted the hell out of it , double hauled a whole line, over lined it and finally got my friend to hold onto the line while I pulled like hell and it didnt even moan a little bit.

Also finally manged to test cast the 3 piece no swell carbon spigot version the same way as the other rod and it held up perfectly too.

Off to the river Doub on Sunday to give them both a proper workout on some of the native tiger trout and grayling which they have in there.

Nick

Just curious? When you make a bamboo ferrule do you take any measures to protect the inside of the ferrule from water? Are the rod sections impregnated?