Construction


Stress curves are graphic representations of a rod's taper and are designed to visually represent the action of a rod under varying degrees of stress which helps to fine tune the rod's eventual taper.
There are various methods of heat treating a culm of bamboo, from open flame to special ovens. The purpose is to drive out excess moisture and/or alter the color. I use a combination of flaming and oven tempering in order to change both the tone and resiliency of the cane.


Splitting the tubular culm into individual strips of useable size is the first step after the culm is treated. An average culm can be split into anywhere from 12-32 strips.


Strips are cleaned up and straightened with a heat gun and then beveled using a special router based machine to give them their initial rough triangular shape.


Steel planing forms are set according to the selected taper. The V groove is adjusted to tolerances within 5/10,000 of an inch. The other option is to use a specially made motorized beveler designed for shaping bamboo strips.


Each strip in the rod is then planed and shaped to match the taper set in the planing form or beveler.


With the proper tools and adjustment, shavings thinner than 1/1,000 of an inch can be consistently made.


A pile of shavings after planing a few rods. Notice the clean curls of bamboo. A sign that the bamboo was heat treated properly, and the planes were tuned well.


Once all the strips for a rod section are planed, they are rolled into loose rod sections and taped together, ready for glueing.


The tape on the rolled up sections is then sliced and the strips are laid flat, cleaned up and prepped for gluing.  Glue is applied with a brush and, if the rod is hollowed, the hollows are carefully cleaned of glue.
After glue is applied, the strips are rolled back togther and bound using a 4-string binder that is designed to tightly secure the strips without introducing any unwanted torque or twist. After binding sections are heat-set they are laid aside to cool and cure.

The glue, tape and string are scraped and sanded from the blank which is then finish sanded and sealed to smooth and protect the cane.


A Cross-section of a cutoff showing the inside of a glued hexagonal blank with the softer pith on the inside and stronger, denser, more resilient power fibers around the perimeter.


Top quality drawn nickel silver ferrules must be filed and fit to extrememly tight tolerances to get a proper fit with the requisite and pleasing 'pop' sound when separated.


The ends of each rod section is then carefully rounded and shaped and the ferrules are securely glued in place.


The grip is shaped from rings of the finest Portuguese cork and the reel seat is sized and fit.


Guides are temporarily taped in place and then are wrapped using the best quality and finest silk available.
After several coats of finish with careful sanding in between are applied to the wraps the rod is submerged in the finest spar varnish available. Two to three coats are applied and then the rod is left hanging in a warm cabinet to let the varnish cure before it is ready to hit the water!