Wednesdays are hump days.  The rod building team of Jeff and Jon finished in record time with both bamboo rods glued up by 6 pm.  Thursday mornings are kind of like Christmas at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods, as all of the students can’t wait to unwrap their rod sections and see what’s inside!   Before anyone starts cleaning up bamboo rod sections,  cork rings must be glued together to form the handgrasp for the fly rod.

Jon on the Hardinge turning down his cork grip for bamboo fly rod

After the grips are turned on the lathe, students jump over to cleaning up their freshly-glued rod sections.  All sections are glued up with URAC 185, one of the classic glues for bamboo rod making.  Care is taken in sanding off the excess glue, so as to assure that only some of the enamel is removed from the rod, protecting the valuable outer power fibers.  Removing the outer power fibers of the rod by careless sanding or intentional sanding down of the strip compromises the rod sections, leaving them soft and lacking the nice quick action of a bamboo fly rod that is made the correct way.

Carefully removing the glue from the bamboo fly rod strips

The day progressed with both students fitting the ferrules of their rods, and turning the ferrule stations to size.  Gluing the ferrules in place comes next, then the grips.  Afterwords, the rod sections are dipped into traditional marine spar varnish.

Rod section extracting from dip tube.

Wednesday’s are “the long day” of rod building here at the shop. Strips for the bamboo fly rods are bound and dry-fit, any adjustments are made, then the strips are bundled together and glued up.

Jeff and Jon were fastidious in their planing and ended up with some very nice bamboo strips. The glue up can be an anxious time, as this is a no-going-back part of bamboo rod building. Any deficiencies in the glue up process can result in a lot of extra time straightening the rod section.  It is always best when the rod section comes out of the binder straight!

Surrounded by bamboo shavings, Jon puts the finishing touch on his strips

Jeff removes excess glue from his rod section

Jeff and Jon were busy today planing out their strips for the Upper Sac Special rods they are building this week at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods.  Both students did a great job straightening their strips as well as dressing the nodes of their rods.  Shavings were all over the table and floors as both builders put the tapers in their strips.

Jeff and Jon prepping strips for their bamboo fly rods

Prepping strips for bamboo fly rods

Razor-sharp plane irons are a must for building bamboo fly rods.  The Lie-Nielsen block planes make quick work out of tapering the strips into the correct dimensions.  Clean edges assure gap-free rod sections.

Jeff is hard at it planing strips for his first bamboo fly rod

Jon planing his strips during rod building class

Jeff and Jon got off to a quick start Monday, splitting cane, staggering nodes, straightening strips and pressing nodes!  The classroom looked like a job shop for bamboo fly rods!

Jeff starts his week of rod building by splitting cane for his fly rod

Jon prepares to start splitting cane

Jon and Jeff cut strips to length after staggering nodes

Both Jeff and Jon made quick progress, going from the culm of bamboo to straight strips, ready for roughing in less than a day.  Both students remarked how easy it was splitting cane  into equal widths using my method.

Hand splitting cane

Jon, splitting cane, surrounded by bamboo rod strips

Both students quickly learned how to keep the widths of their strips even along the entire length.  Jon and Jeff transitioned to straightening and pressing nodes in the afternoon, and by quitting time, had their strips straight and flat, ready to be roughed into triangles.

One of the hardest things to do as a rod builder is to “get the bamboo fly rod in the tube”!  While work in progress can consist of an impressive number of cane rods, actually getting them in the tube can be a real challenge.  So fait complete, or how ever it’s spelled, really means work done.  Here two happy rod makers pose with John Rivera’s brand new bamboo fly rod.  Completed in one week! 

John and Chris outside Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rod Shop

John Rivera finished up his rod making class this weekend and ended up with a beautiful 8 foot bamboo fly rod.   He had the time to build a second tip, ferrule it and dip it one time.  John chose variegated thread for the nickel silver ferrules as well as the signature wraps.  Old-school B and C pale green silk thread was used for the guide wraps.  All in all, a great week for both builder and instructor.

Bamboo rod building. Attaching reel seat with Raine alignment fixture

John Rivera and his completed bamboo fly rod

John Rivera has the touch.  The perfect touch, with the walk.  It isn’t easy to plane bamboo strips into perfect triangles, but Rivera has ….the touch.  Watch the You tube video below, and see, and hear, the perfect pitch of planing out a strip for a bamboo fly rod at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods.  When the plane iron is sharp, the strips are held correctly, and the student building the bamboo fly rod are in unison, the shavings are perfect!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caj0Qyninic[/youtube]

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

Again, John is ahead in his bamboo rod build.   We had both of his rod sections glued up right after lunch.  Both sections of his bamboo fly rod were dry fit first, in order to achieve the finest fit.  There was a good deal of dialog between the two of us concerning the exact reason for dry fitting the strips first.  The image below to the left shows the concentration required to nest up the glued strips into the perfect rod section.

John using Urac 185 to glue up bamboo fly rod section

Garrison style gluing binder used for bamboo rod sectionsJohn shares a lighter moment with the instructor while gluing up his cork grip

John glues up his cork grip for 8 foot Upper Sac Special

John gluing up bamboo rod section

John is way ahead of the curve as of the end of today.  He planed out his butt section, dry fit it, started on his tip section and also managed to split out another tip section of strips, and dropped them in the water to try his hand at “soaked” strips.  While not something I am particularly fond of, this is another method of straightening used by some makers.  He will have the chance to compare the two methods of straightening strips for bamboo fly rods and decide for himself.

John hand splitting strips for tip section of bamboo fly rod

John made quick work of hand planing his strips for his bamboo fly rod:

John planing out strips for his bamboo fly rod

Wednesday will find John busy with planing out his last strips, gluing up and a few other things getting him closer to finishing his bamboo fly rod.