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