so here's the story...finished blank numerero uno.....i call it the bastard payne taper. , and in the midst of blank no. 002. i had blank one, unferrurled and non straighted, but sanded and polished, in the bedroom closet...waiting to be ferrurled and varnished. turned out quite nice, all things being relative....well, the three year old and 18 mo old have a natural attraction to destuction...i can almost see how "caning" became sucha popular form of correction....and long story short, broke the soon to be tip....in a curious way, because how it broke was one spline broke off...at about the lenght of 6 inches.....so to get to the topic at hand...this being my first rod making attempt and not quite sure if my technique is sound, i.e. heat treating, glue, binding, etc....what should be the best way to further "test" this rod and see if my approach is working. I use frank n's oven plans...370-390 for 8-12 min, tb3 glue and hand bind....so how to break and what to look for....

Splice the tip and take it fishing. I had something similar happen to me with a nodeless rod where one splice at the tip decided to let go in the binder. That was a heart breaker, so I feel your pain.

It is that or re-purpose it. I have a few butt sections that didn't work out well that became silk wrap test sticks. Another one became bodkins for friends.