The Lovely Reed: Part 5

"L'acqua si toccano in un fiume è l'ultimo di ciò che è passato, e la prima di quella che viene; quindi è con il tempo." ("The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming; thus it is with time.")  Leonardo DaVinci

An icy morning a week or so after my return from Nazareth gives me a chance to finish my report on rod building. Last Tuesday, the string was removed from the rod blank, the last of the glue sanded away, and final adjustments to the rod taper made with gentle sanding and frequent tests with the micrometer. The ferrules were fitted and glued, and the rod butt lathed down to size to accept the reelseat. A bit of minor straightening, and voila’: a completed blank!

The application of finish, the reelseat and handle, guides and, eventually, a second tip, await me over the coming months, but the real heart of the matter, the rod blank itself, is complete. That would not have happened without George Maxwell. George is the kind of teacher we all wish we had. Practical, honest, and adaptable, he was a boundless source of hard-earned advice, and was as friendly and encouraging a mentor as a person could hope for. You can find a link to George’s website in my links column, and if you’re looking for a beautiful and functional fly rod, or for instruction in building them, I can’t recommend him too highly.

Before I forget: a big shout out to the lovely and historic old Hotel Bethlehem. I could have stayed closer to Nazareth, but not in such a historic, comfortable and clean room. Since it's in the heart of Bethlehem's historic district, there are many great places to eat, drink, and shop in walking distance, and Bethlehem is one of Pennsylvania's hippest historic towns. As it happened, I wound up only spending maybe ten more bucks a night than I would have at the Holiday Inn. It was well worth the money.  I've linked to them as well!

Pics of the last day are below…  

Final sanding

Turning the ferrule station

Male ferrule installed

Pilgrims Progress: A finished blank!

The Lovely Reed: Part 4

…all good things…come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy. Norman Maclean

Cork Handle Pre-Shapeing

We started the final production steps on my rod at 7:30 this morning, and we left the shop at 7:30 this evening. The work included the secondary planeing and final planeing of the rod butt and one of its eventually two tips, the sculpting of a cork grip, and the gluing and binding of the 12 completed strips into butt and tip. It will be up to me to mount the reel seat and handle, apply the varnish, wrap the guides, eventually build the second tip, and fish the rod. It’s especially important that I fish the rod.

Maybe that means it’s not art, but craft. I’m not qualified to offer a reasonable opinion on big questions like that. But I know that it matters what it looks like, and how it casts, and it matters that it wasn’t made from petrochemicals in some dreadful factory somewhere, but from wood and cork and nickel silver and silk. And it matters too that I can feel it strain and bend and flex against the line and gravity and that I can catch a fish with it. And it definitely matters that I helped to build it with my own hands, and that I can now build others. It’s enough for me.

Pics and video below…will likely not post again for a couple evenings, but stay tuned…

Removing the apex from a butt section

Completed Handle

Nearly finalized tip section

Tip sections ready to glue and bind

Butt section glued and bound

The Lovely Reed: Part 3

…people tend to get the politicians, and the fishing tackle, they deserve.

John Gierach

I got on the elevator at the lovely old historic hotel I’m hiding out in completely exhausted, in old jeans and a fleece jacket, covered with bamboo shavings and sawdust. Inside the elevator was a handsome middle aged woman dressed to the 9’s, impeccably coifed, with a large pour of pinot noir in a crystal glass. When the door closed she looked at me and blurted out “You’re not here for the bridal show are you?’ I smiled, and when the door opened for my floor I told her “No honeybunch, I’m not.”

Comprehending the technical perfection of a finished bamboo rod is a little intimidating.  The differences between a five weight rod and a six weight rod are about 5 thousandths of an inch (less than the thickness of a sheet of typing paper). Similar tolerances apply to ferrules, silk wraps, and finishes. It turns out, the secret is approaching perfection in baby steps. The hand planeing of the strips proceeds through stages, each successively more fine grained, each relying on its predecessor. The final perfection does not become easier exactly, but it does become comprehensible. I could see, on day 3, how I will get there.

Today the strips passed through a router -powered mill that roughed them into triangular cross-sections (I did some of them by hand just for practice) and the careful adjustment of the planeing form and the secondary planeing began.  We also glued up the cork rings that will become the rod’s grip (right now they look like a camshaft).  Pics and a video follow!

A hexagonal bundle of strips

Adjusting the planeing form

Secondary planeing in 5 thousandths increments

Gluing and pressing cork rings into the beginnings of a handle

The Lovely Reed: Part 2

Q. What’s the difference between a pole and a rod?

A. A pole you hang a flag from. Any kind of rod’s gonna cost you 1,500 bucks…

Anon.

I am a fat, old bureaucrat, and I sit in front of a goddamned computer all day and talk with some good people and innumerable assholes on the telephone. Also I go to meetings.

The last couple days I have been on my feet all day, splitting bamboo, evaluating the irregularities and qualities of the strips, filing and shaving down the nodes, and beginning the long process of straightening the crooked strips, and hand planing them into triangular dimensions.  My feet hurt, my arthritic knee is singing to me, and I’m sore and tired. Toward the end of this afternoon, the block plane began to balance naturally in my hand, and long, even shavings of bamboo began to curl from the plane's throat as I slowly walked the plane up the metal form and the bamboo strip from butt to tip. There was the solid and rhythmic rasp of the sharp plane, the sweet tannic smell of bamboo being heated and cut and shaved, the quiet conversation, the steady and mesmerizing concentration, the satisfaction of work slowly yielding beautiful results. All day, I smiled…nice work if you can get it!

Today we spaced nodes and cut strips to length. We filed nodes, and straightened curves and doglegs in the strips with heat and pressure, and we began the process of planing the strips into their initial shape.  Pictures and a video to follow… 

About 3 dozen strips from the original culm

Matching up the node patterns on the selected strips

Filing down the nodes