Square to round?  That’s the dilemma when making quad bamboo fly rods.  How to get there.  Without feeling like a miniature blacksmith… tapping, tapping, tapping. Pounding, pounding some more.

Real quad ferrules

Here are some pictures of honest-to -goodness quad ferrules.  Square to round.  And nice looking.  And, extremely light.  30-40 percent lighter!  Can you say lighter bamboo fly rod?  This is a huge increase in performance of bamboo fly rods.  They really compliment hollow building.

Moisture check on male ferrule

The important thing here is that I can now build the ferrule to fit the bamboo fly rod, not the other way around.  The taper is now king.  Small changes to the ferrule station, as little as .001″ can be accommodated by tooling.

Detail of female welts, and tapered openings

This run is for the shorter Quad Rods.  The ratio is about 3 to 1, and with the newer style construction approaches the weight of hex micro ferrules.

My shop looks like it has been burglarized.  A burglar would break in, and think he was too late.
But it was worth it.  Now I have to spend a couple of days cleaning up!