I'd like a little insight into repairing a loose male ferrule on my bamboo. It appears (after fishing it a handful of times) that it is loose enough to pull off the end of the buttsection. It slowly started as a thin crack line in my ferrule disguise wraps and then the gap became larger as the ferrule pulled away from the ajoining threads. So it is time to fix this situation. Can I removed the male ferrule, clean out the innards and the male end of the bamboo section of glue and then use 2 part epoxy to repair it?

Thank you,

Dj

I had this same thing happen to my first few rods. What was recommended to me was to remove the ferrule clean the rod section and ferrule section to be glued with acetone. Apply two coats of plio bond to the rod and ferrule allowing the coats to dry. Than just heat the ferrule and rod and press it into place. Wrap the tabs with binding string and allow 24 hours to cure minimum. Plio bond is a contact cement and needs to have a tight fit in order to properly bond.

You could also pin the ferrules with nickle silver pinning wire. You just clip down the wire and polish with sand paper from grits 600 up to 1500. If you pin the ferrule you wont have to remove the wraps and a little bit of varnish so that may be the best route.

Good luck, I got so discouraged when this happened to me.

Is there a reason why some people shy away from epoxy? Seems to me it gives a solid permanent bond for ferrules and saves having to pin which has to weaken the rod to some extent. A little too permanent perhaps?

I would pin it. If you need to borrow a pinning bit and some pinning wire let me know.

I may just try the epoxy and see what happens. Worst case scenario, it loosens up again and I come calling to one of you guys asking where I should send it for repair?!

LOL!

Pinning...does anyone have a photo of a pinned section before the ferrule is installed? Are you using wire to close the gap and make for a tighter fit? Am I reading this correctly?

Dj

I think Perry B pretty well covered the reason for not using epoxy. Epoxy does not have much sheer strength when going from hot to cold and the metal expands and contracts at a different rate than the bamboo. In fact, if you want to remove an epoxied ferrule just heat it then quickly cool it. The Pliobond stays stuck through all of that expansion and contraction. Ferrules correctly installed with Pliobond are very tough to remove. You will need a very good ferrule puller and a sturdy vice to get them off. No pinning necessary either.

fishbum

Who wants to pliobond and repair this for me? PM me the details and cost please.

Thank you,

Dj

Dj,

Did I read correctly that the male ferrule is on the butt section? That is not unheard of, but not too common either.

Harry
(who uses epoxy, and pins all his ferrules) (and reel seats)

Whuuupppsss! Female ferrule on the buttsection. Sorry, asking from memory of the last outing when it was put away. Sad to say, that was only a week ago! What's that tell you about my memory?!

Dj

Pinning wire is usually .040 and the associated drill bits are .039 usually. Thus a very tight fit I have pinned 4 rods by drilling with a hand drill and after polished you can barely notice the pin and I believe its because I am not holding the drill perfectly center and straight everytime. I would bet If you used the proper wire and bit. Made a nice jig or something for the rod to rest on and drill with a drill press after the wire has been sniped and polished you would not be able to find it. I could be wrong though.


Don in Nanaimo You are correct pinning does weaken the rod a little. I wouldn't worry too much if its a lighter 2 wt rods. I would not try to pin a tip section on a 3 piece though I am sure it can be done.

If you decide to go ahead and use an epoxy use the slowest setting epoxy you can find. In general the faster setting epoixes are more brittle. But plio bond would be very easy to glue the section back together and it can be found at most hardware supply shops. I have seen the stuff in fly fishing shops.

I had epoxy fail on my first three rods. I think it was old, or I didn't clean well enough, or my proportions weren't good enough, or a combo of these. In any case I re-glued with JBWeld and they are holding great. I tried pliobond, but found it hard to do neatly.

Plio bond cleans very easily with acetone.

There are people who are using epoxy for ferrules with great success still. And it's worth noting that Garrison used epoxy, a 2 ton mixed with something else I believe, and when he used epoxy he said there was no need to pin. I don't know if Garrison's ferrules came off or not but I suspect they probably didn't.

Now, with many more spaceage choices there may be something that has eclipsed epoxy and I would certainly not be one to know but the other ideas are appreciated by me for one, and probably by other beginners.

While people are having success with several different products for fixing ferrules I think we need to be cautious of accepting anything as the final word.

Garrison used a mixture of two epoxies for his ferrules. From the Bible:


And from the photos it looks white when mixed.

The important part is that the mixture he used expanded when it dried and was very likely slightly flexible. Most off-the-shelf epoxies that I have used either contract slightly when the cure or are very hard to even brittle when cured. What is needed, assuming one wants to use epoxy, is a slow curing epoxy that has very good shock resistance (soft) and expands slightly when cured. 3M has a good website that describes all their epoxies and their different characteristics and I've found a couple that are hard to find but available in small batches that are ideal for ferrules. The best I've tested so far is the Scotch Weld Gray DP190 or the even better EC2216 but neither are exactly easy to find nor cheap compared to store bough epoxies and you have to be very careful of the expiration dates.

The easiest way to test if your epoxy is worth a damn is to submerge a mounted male ferrule into a glass of ice water (put it in a baggie if you don't want to get it wet) and leave it there for a good 15 minutes or more. Pull it out of the water and give it a couple firm but reasonable whacks with a small hammer. Most will pull right off. If it handles that, try heating it up a little over a heat gun or alcohol torch before plunging it into the ice water, etc. If it makes it through both those tests it should work good for rodmaking.

Quality epoxy adhesion assumes, of course, that the ferrules are prepped properly which means everything is perfectly clean and the ferrule is significantly roughed up on the inside.