Building A Custom Cane/Bamboo Fly Rod Step By Step
Part # 5 TURNING A CUSTOM REELSEAT AND GRIP, SPACING GUIDES AND SETTING FERRULES
I have decided to split the last part of this series into two seperate parts. Part # 5 will cover ferrules and guides and Part # 6 the final part of this series will cover how to make a custom reel seat and grip, wrapping and finishing your rod.
This method of setting ferrules by hand, was developed by Dave Collyer of Denver Dave’s Bamboo Rods. I do not take credit for any of these methods. But I do use Dave’s ferrule method myself on all my rods.
FERRULES
Properly setting ferrules is probably the most intimidating step in making a cane rod. It is very important that it is done properly or all kinds or problems can arise. you can end up with ferrules that are too loose or tight or ferrules that click or where set crooked and it can dampen the action or ruin the looks and function of a good rod. Ferrules are measured in 64ths of an inch. 1/64 = .015" The way to determine what size ferrule is needed is to measure the diameter of the rod on opposing flats at the ferrule station and divide that measurement by .015" For example, a 2 PC rod that measures 0.206 at the ferrule station would require a 13/64 ferrule 0.206/ .015 = 13.7 or 13/64ths
Rod ferrules come in all kinds of different types and many different sizes. There are rolled tin soldered ferrules, brass tube ferrules, nickel silver tube ferrules, straight ferrules, stepdown ferrules Super Z . The ferrules most used by rod makers making new cane rods are tht nickel silver ferrules turned from barstock that have a moisture dam. They come in sets of 1 female and two male ferrules for 2 PC 2 tip rods but you can also buy them single 1 male 1 female. Barstock SuperZ type ferrules run between $50.00 - $75.00 a set. I buy my ferrules from Tony Larson of Rush River . He makes a beautiful copy of the SuperZ and they take very little fine tuning to get them to fit properly. Golden Which and REC Components also carry some very fine nickel silver bar stock ferrules.
DIFFERENT STYLE FERRULES
TONY’S RUSH RIVER FERRULES
MEASURING INSIDE OF FERRULE
MEASURING AND CUTTING SECTIONS TO LENGTH
The first thing you will need to do is mark out the ferrule stations. I plane all my blanks 2 stations longer than required. 1 station coarser on the wide end and one station finer on the narrow end. This does two things. It leaves me a extra cane to play with when it comes to laying out the ferrule stations, and it allows me to hit the exact taper dead on to within 0.001" To cut your sections to length, lay your blanks along side your form and using your calipers to find the measurement on each blank that corresponds with the taper you planed on your forms. Use a fine saw like a hacksaw or Japanese draw saw to cut your blanks to length. At this time, I install my tip top. I don’t glue it, I just slide it on because I will have to remove it later to locate the spine. I lay the tip section along side a tape measure on top of my forms, mark out my length and then cut my blank. That way I cut the blank the exact length including the tip top. If you don’t install the tip first, you could be out as much as 1/4" on your total length or one section could be longer than the other. I suggest using a miter box to get your cuts perfectly straight. Check the ends by butting them up to each other. They should be nice and square on the ends. If you are using ferrules with a moisture check, you should slightly round off the leading edge to fit the crown of the check. Try to get the smoothest transition between sections at your ferrule stations. Slight differences are ok, but you should try to stay within .005".
ALWAYS MEASURE WITH TIP TOP INSTALLED
CUTTING SECTIONS
SECTION OF EXACT SAME LENGTH WITH FERRULE AND TIP-TOP INSTALLED
MARKING OUT FERRULE STATIONS
Once the sections are cut to length, lay the male half of the ferrule along side the tip section, don’t forget to allow for the moisture cap. Mark the depth of the ferrule over onto the blank, then take a piece of masking tape and wrap it around the blank above the station. For the female part of the ferrule, take a toothpick and measure the depth inside the ferrule, mark it with a pencil on the toothpick and transfer that measurement to the ferrule station on the butt blank. Once again taking in account for the moisture check.
TURNING OR LAPPING BLANKS
The easiest way to do this of course is to use a ferrule station cutter on a rod lathe . A ferrule station cutter is a little tool like a collet. They come in all different sizes for different size ferrules. You simply chuck it in the lathe and feed the blank into it. It cuts a perfect station in a matter of seconds, but not everyone can afford a $1000.00 rod lathe and a set of cutters. Fortunately for the hobbyist and small time maker with a little time and elbow grease you can lap your ferrule stations by hand with just as good of results. Take a 2" x 4" 150 grit sand paper and fold in half, making a 2" x 2" pad with the grit out on both sides. Fold the pad over the butt section station, holding it in place with your thumb and forefinger. Lay the section across your lap and roll the blank back and forth with your other hand, moving the sanding pad up the down the station slowly removing the cane by sanding. Note: Check fit often and remember the leading edge of your tip sections is the largest measurement on that station and the masked side of the butt section is the largest measurement on that station. Make sure you do not sand too much off. The ferrule should slide on easily. It should not be loose, but it should not be snug either. You need to leave enough room for glue. You should be able to slide it on and off with ease but there should not be any wobble in it.
LAPPING A FERRULE STATION
CLEANING & DRESSING FERRULES
You may have noticed that when you got your brand new ferrules that they don’t fit together properly. This is because you have to fine tune your ferrules. Most ferrule makers leave about a 0.002 difference between ferrule sections. Do not try to fit the ferrules together by force. They are very delicate and you will never get them apart again without destroying them. You will have to hand lap your ferrules with sand paper and steel wool to fit them properly. To do this you will need some lacquer thinner or acitone, I prefer acitone because it cleans better and it totally evaporates without leaving a film. This helps the glue to hold better some Q-Tips some 300 & 400 grit sandpaper, a set of needle files, some #0000 steel wool and some green hard metal polishing compound. It is much easier to remove material from the outside of the male ferrule than it is to remove material from the inside of the female ferrule, so most of our work will be done on the male part. The only thing we really need to do with the female half is to clean it and polish the inside of the barrel. Start by rolling a little cylinder of 400 grit paper and carefully sanding the inside of the female ferrule just to smooth out the machining marks if there are any. Next take a chunk of your steel wool, shave off a little polishing compound and work it into the steel wool. polish out the inside of the female ferrule. Then you take a Q-Tip and soak it in acitone and clean out the inside of the ferrule. Repeat this process until the Q-Tip comes out clean and there is no more black coming out. Now using the same piece of steel wool with the polishing compound on it, polish the male side by rolling it on your lap the same way you did when you where sanding the ferrule stations. Then clean it off with a rag soaked in acitone. Now gently try to fit the ferrules together. If you are lucky, this is all you will need to do. If it does not fit smoothly, you will have to sand and re-polish the outside of the male ferrule.
CLEANING POLISHING
CHECKING FIT BEFORE PREPPING TABS
PREPPING FERRULE TABS
Now that we have a good fit on the ferrules, we can dress the ferrule tabs. This eases the transition from the metal to the cane and done correctly alleviates stress cracks in the ferrule wrap after fishing the rod. This can be done by hand and a nail file or by masking off the ferrule and chucking it up in a cordless drill… Normally the tab area is tapered from .015" wall size down to a .008" wall size at the open end, we want to keep this slope and take the tabs down by sanding to a .003" wall thickness at the open end.Start with a fine needle file to remove most of the material, then when close to finish size smooth out with the 400 grit sandpaper. A correctly dressed tab will flex at the tip when a little pressure is applied with the finger nail. Be careful not the feather out the edges to much as they can collapse and fold when installing them on the cane. Once you have them tapered down to the proper thickness, you want to crown the tabs. this looks really nice if you are using translucent wraps. It also makes a much nicer transition between blank and ferrule. When you have dressed the tabs, clean the ferrules out one more time with the Q-Tips and thinner.
USING A DIAMOND WET STONE AND DREMEL TOOL TO DRESS THE TABS
FILING CROWNS WITH NEEDLE FILE
CROWNED & DRESSED FERRULE
WHAT IS ROD SPINE?
Before we can install our ferrules, we need to find the rod spine. Although many people have heard the term rod spine, not too many know what it really is or understand how it works. What we are describing in rod making as the spine or backbone of the rod is that when a blank is bent or placed in an arc as seen when fighting a fish, the rod will bend naturally along a certain axis , at the top of this arc is the spine. This is the stiffer side of the blank that has the most resistance. All blanks have a spine to some degree. The perfect blank would have none. The better built the blank the less pronounced the spine. It is very easy to find the spine of a rod blank. There are all kinds of weighted gadgets and gizmoes on the market, but that’s all they really are is gadgets. All you need to do to find a rods spine is grab it between finger and thumb on both ends or place one end against the floor and bend a gentle arc or bow in the rod. Now roll it between your finger and thumb. The rod will try to curve the way it wants to. Each time you roll it away from the spine, the rod will try to roll or jump back like it has a mind of it’s own, to the way in naturally wants to bend.
FINDING THE SPINE
When you are making or building a rod, you have two choices on where to place your guides. You can either place your guides on the stiffer back of the spine, or you can place them on the other softer side opposite the spine, This is what is referred to as building with or against the spine. You must choose the same side for all the sections of the blank or the rod will constantly try to twist on you. It will also affect the tracking and accuracy as the rod tip will tend to drift off to one side or the other while casting. You can’t build the tip section with the spine and the butt section against it or the rod will have a natural tendency to twist when it is under strain when fighting a fish. If you build a rod with the guides located along the spine it will be slightly stiffer than if you place the guides on the softer underside going with the natural curve of the rod. There is a lot of controversy among rod makers on which is the better way to build a rod. The old classic makers believed you should always build a rod with the guides located along the stiffer spine, but today many modern makers believe you should build opposite the spine and go with the rod’s natural curve.
It is my belief and I will stand by this and prove this in practise to anyone on the water, that a soft slow action light weight 0 to 3 WT dry fly 
rod should always be built against the spine, along the softer natural curvature of the rod so that the rod remains as soft and supple in action as possible. You want the action of the rod to go along with the pull of the weight of the line on the forward cast so that when the rod has released all of it’s kinetic energy the leader will turn over gently without any backlash and the fly can be laid upon the water as gently as possible. The action of the rod should stay true to the rod’s nature. You want the rod to load strong on the back cast but release gently on the forward cast. This will also help to protect fine tippets as the rod will have less shock and resistance and will tend to flex more taking the impact off the tippet while setting the hook. The down side of building on the soft side of a rod is that the rod does not have as good of line pickup off the water. The rod will tend to have more flex than resistance when it comes to picking up line, but this is not a big issue with light weight floating lines, as very little rod resistance is needed to pick up these light little lines off the water anyway. When you want that little bit of extra dry fly finesse, build against the spine.
As the rod weights increase and the lines get heavier and heavier, more and more rod resistance is needed to lift the line off the water. With the exception of slow action light weight full flexing dry rods, all other slow medium to fast action rods 4 WT and over should be built along the spine for maximum line pickup off the water. When a fly line is laying on the water at the end of a drift, it is at it’s heaviest point. Not only does it have the weight of the water , but it also has the directional flow of the of the water pulling against it. We all know what it’s like trying to pull a large soaking wet streamer off the water at the end of a drift. This is when we need our spine resistance the most.
INSTALLING FERRULES WITH PLIOBOND
Pliobond is the best adhesive I have found for setting ferrules. You can buy Pliobond readily at any local hardware store. It is actually a form of contact cement. Make sure the Pliobond is well mixed. Apply about two drops of Pliobond inside of the female ferrule with a toothpick, taking care to coat the whole inside of the ferrule including the tabs. Seat ferrule in place on cane and twist, then remove the ferrule and apply one more drop of Pliobond inside of the ferrule. Then coat the cane with about two/three drops of Pliobond going just over the station onto the blank.
Heat the female ferrule with a Bic lighter at the moisture dam, rotating the ferrule as it heats (you will hear the Pliobond bubbling) then move the flame down the ferrule to the open end and it will flame out. As the ferrules is flaming apply the Bic flame on the cane while rotating the blank and let it flame out.While the ferrule is still hot press it on to the cane station and align the tabs with the flats, you can use the side of your bench to press on the ferrule but be very careful. Roll the very tips of the tabs with the round shaft of a screw driver to set them in place. Roll the lose excess glue off with your finger, then use lacquer thinner to clean up the rest. There might be some dark spots on the tabs where the glue burnt and will not come off, Sand this off and redress the tabs with the 220 grit nail file by hand. To finish out the tabs, use #0000 steel wool and buff to a bright finish by holding the steel wool with your thumb and forefinger on the tab station and rotating the blank on your lap as we did in sanding the cane station before.
On the male ferrules use a pair of leather gloves as we will do it the same as outlined above but you will heat the closed end first, then rotate the ferrule in your gloved hand and flame out the open end of the ferrule.Caution must be used not to get the ferrule too hot or you will weaken the metal and/or melt the solider on ferrules made from tubing. Mastering the skill to set ferrules in this manor will result in a bond that will last 50+ years, no matter the temperature changes or climate changes but can be removed with a little heat if needed. Pliobond is a contact cement and if done correctly will allow you to lap the ferrules as soon as it has cooled. No amount of "drying time" will help set the bond after it has been flamed, so if it’s going to fail it’s best to know now and you can clean up the ferrule and station with lacquer thinner and try again.
FLAMING A FERRULE
SETTING A FERRULE
Once the ferrule is set, before it cools down, I bind the tabs tight to the blank with binding cord.
FERRULES INSTALLED
SPACING GUIDES
If you are restoring an old rod, placing the guides back in their original position is usually not a problem because there is usually a tell tale mark left on the blank where the guides where located. If there are no age marks on the blank, you can simply lay the rod along the baseboard and mark the guide locations on the baseboard with a pencil. Guide measurements are always measured from the center ring of the guide. not from the end of the guide foot. A standard rule to calculate the number of guides you need for a rod is 1 guide per foot, + 1
6′ rod would be 6+1= 7 you need 7. 6 regular guides + 1 stripper
7′
If you are making a rod from scratch there are a number of ways you can go about setting out the guide locations. You can steal the guide locations off another rod, or you can use a guide chart like the one at REC Components. Wayne Cattanach’s method which is to increase 9/16" per guide will work for any rod. Wayne starts with a guide placed directly below the female ferrule on the but section then calculates the locations of the remaining guides. I like to start with my stripper guide at between 26 - 27" measuring from the butt cap of the reel seat. If you hold your rod in front of you and reach your other arm out as if to start stripping line, this places the stripping guide directly in front of where you grab your line. Next on most light weight trout rods between 3 -5 wt I place a size 0 guide 4" below the tiptop, then measure the remaining distance between it and the stripper and divide that equally by the remaining number of guides. Once I have these locations marked on the blank starting from the size 0 guide just below the tip top I increase 9/16 per guide. If I have to reposition the stripper 1" either way to even out the spacing it is not a problem.
Once the guides are in their proper locations the traditional method of fastening them to the blank is with scotch tape. I don’t like using tape. It is a real pain I use that rubberized stretchy Spider Thread spawn bag tie to fasten the guides. It holds the guides very securely. I have test cast rods vigorously for up to an hour with only a few wraps of spider Thread holding the guides in place and they have not moved a single mm, but at the same time I can still easily adjust them if I needed to. I leave the Spider Thread in place until I have wrapped over the edge of the guide foot because it holds the guide very tight to the flat, then I just nick it with a surgical scalpel and it springs loose and falls away from the blank. It works so slick.
SPIDER THREAD
SPIDER THREAD HOLDING A GUIDE FOOT IN PLACE WHILE WRAPPING
Once you have test cast your rod, determined what type / wt of line it is best suited for and you are satisfied with the guide locations and the rods overall performance, it’s time to start wrapping the guides. This is my favorite step in building a rod, but it can also be the biggest nightmare if it is not done properly. Silk is the traditional thread for wrapping cane rods. For new rods, I use only the finest Presales 0.006 Gossamer silk thread.
