Thursday was an action-packed day of bamboo rod making.  John started up the day by shaping his cork grip.  As he was shaping the grip, his rod sections were in the oven, heat-setting the bamboo rod blanks.  Careful work on the rod sections brought out the best in both sections with a highly burnished finish, ready for ferruling.

Sealing voids on bamboo fly rod grip

The special tooling for the cork grip makes building your own grip a breeze.  And you don’t have to fight the usual tiny 1/4″ hole through the grip.

Taking rod section out of the string

John at the Hardinge turning his cork grip