Mark M. has started building his bamboo fly rod here at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods. He chose the 8 foot, 5 weight “Upper Sac Special” for his first bamboo fly rod. Below is the slide show of his build, as it happens. As an aside, Mark brought his own Walton Powell Hexagraph rod, built for him by Walton himself. Mark took Walton fishing on the Bitterroot years ago, and the rod maker sent him a rod as a gift!
Notice that during the bamboo rod building process that we lost electricity! We were working by lantern light from 11 am to 5 pm on Wednesday. Just shows to go ya that you can build a bamboo fly rod without electricity! Mark signed his rod and plans to give it to his father for Christmas!
East Meets West This Month! Two students met this Sunday for a Bamboo Rod Building Class at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods. Will is from Maine, and Dan from SoCal. Sunday afternoon had both students casting bamboo fly rods, trying to decide which taper fit them and their fishing needs best!
After casting the DF90, the Upper Sac Special, and the Model 100, both students decided to build the DF 90, a fine 7′ 6″ two piece rod for a 5 weight.
The DF 90 is an E.C. Powell-based B taper, with a fairly steep slope. It is a great choice for the fly fisherman who fishes graphite, and wants to move into a quality bamboo fly rod. Dan and Will chose to use the Payne method of culm selection and utilization. The only difference so far has been that Will chose a 3×3 node stagger a la Leonard, and Dan opted for the 2x2x2 stagger in keeping with E.C. Powell. Stay tuned as these two advance through the rod making process!
Wednesday’s work day was done before 5!! Both Dan and Will ended up with some great rod sections. As usual, everybody had glue on their hands, so no pictures of the glue-up! The Raine Better Binder did a great job producing straight rod sections with no twists. The students did a great job planing out their strips, so the seams were, well, seemless!
Gary showed up last Sunday from the Tahoe area. He had a gleam in his eye, and a set of strips planed out from some 15 years ago! He did a great job getting “back up to speed” with his building. Gary’s choice of rod was a Payne 98, a fine 7 footer for a 4 weight. A medium flame was put on the culm and I must say, the rod came out just gorgeous.
The production-class Raine Better Binder got a good work out this week! Sam flew in from Virginia to take a class here, and has made great progress throughout the week. This is a photo essay of a few of the processes involved in building bamboo fly rods. A more complete slide show is now available. Notice the unique hand grasp that Sam selected for his first bamboo rod, the 8 foot “Upper Sac Special”!
Six of the Raine Better Binder have been completed. Straight rod sections, with no twists! A rod maker’s dream come true!
This is a first for students taking my bamboo rod making class! My student for this week is from the other corner of the world, Australia! Tom, fresh into his retirement, has decided to try his hand at building bamboo fly rods. Monday he flamed his culm of bamboo, straightened, pressed and roughed out his strips. He is really taking like a duck to water with rod making. They have ducks in Australia? Gotta ask him!
This is a great video for those interested in taking a bamboo rod building class at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods. The week is documented in detail, showing aspiring rod makers the intricacies involved in building the fine bamboo fly rod. You can see from the smile on Tom’s face while casting his new rod, that his week of rod building was well spent!
Chris,
I have returned to Melbourne, shown my rod to family and friends, and the waiting list is growing (though at no cost that is to be expected). We are all amazed at how well it turned out, including myself.
When I knew retirement was around the corner, I spent some time looking for the best rod building course for myself; so in choosing your course I had pretty high expectations. Well I have to say the week exceeded every expectation I had! Your clear, patient but direct teaching style coupled with the personal attention was just superb. And just when I think I have forgotten something important, I find it in your syllabus or in my notes. What is so obvious is that in every step of the way, you have thought through the best and most practical way to get it accomplished with the best result in mind. The system for node straightening and pressing all the way up to your brilliant glue binder really are worth the price of admission alone.
So Chris, thank you very much for the education, the most enjoyable experience, and for your openness along the way. I just can’t recommend your course any more highly to anyone interested in building bamboo fly rods.
And on a similar note, I would like to be placed on your waiting list for the 8’3″ Quad similar to the one I cast. A lovely, light and so accurate rod. If you need a deposit, please advise.
And finally, please also put me down for a glue binder when it is ready. I have a few months of gathering equipment to put my shop together, so no hurry on that one. Again, when you are ready please let me know and I will forward money and details for the shipping as well.
So thanks again Chris, and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.
Bryan is spending the week after Thanksgiving building a bamboo fly rod! Living in Montana, he chose Raine Hollowbuilt Bamboo Fly Rods as his class of choice. As an experienced woodworker, Bryan has taken to crafting a bamboo fly rod like a duck to water. Bryan was able to move right through the rod building process and not only did he complete his Payne 100, he was also able to finish up a 2nd tip and glued it up prior to leaving!
Here are some images from Friday and Saturday’s rod building classes. Both Bob and Jim came out with great bamboo fly rods! Jim’s rod came in as a 3 weight, and Bob’s was a true 4! Saturday morning, both were casting their rods, wondering about how fast the week went by, and how their work took a 6 pound culm of bamboo and transformed it to a 3 ounce bamboo fly rod!
Smooth. Very smooth. That is how I would describe this week’s rod building class. Bob and Jim have been building their bamboo fly rods with smoothness. And it is apparent that “smooth is fast”. Thursday is rod section clean up, ferrule prep, cork grip turning, assembling the afore-mentioned components, and dipping the rod sections. Both of their fly rods look just fantastic. These two guys are small-stream experts, and the Model 100 rods they are building will be just the ticket for the streams they fish!
“Rod making made simple” should be the name of the class with Jim and Bob participating! Both students had their rods glued up by mid afternoon. I think this must be a record. The glue up was for the most part uneventful, with little if any cussing at the machine by this instructor. The new binder was demoed after gluing with the Garrison style binder, and their were nods of approval from the students as well as the instructor. The images below represent the work done Wednesday:
