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.

Here are some more images of bamboo rod making classes that went on Monday.  John is the solo student this week, as his classmate had to reschedule to June.  John is getting plenty of attention from me, and is really making great progress.

John removing inner node prior to straightening

This image shows John removing the inner portion of the node prior to splitting and straightening.  This allows for more controlled splitting.

After this step in rod building, John proceeds to splitting into narrower and narrower strips.   After choosing his node stagger, in this case a Garrison style, John went to town straightening and roughing his strips.

John straightens out the sweeps in his bamboo rod strips

This month’s rod building class got off to a fast start!  Culm selection, splitting and straightening cane, roughing and binding the pieces for the bamboo fly rod occurred quickly.

John tries out the Upper Sac Special

John started off his week Sunday afternoon, casting a couple of bamboo fly rods.  He ended up selecting the Raine Upper Sac Special taper for his build.

John splitting cane for his bamboo fly rod

John decided to use the Payne method of culm selection and got to work splitting the cane.  It wasn’t too long before he had the culm split into workable strips.

Saturday found us out across the street casting Gene and Wayne’s bamboo fly rods.    Both of the new rod builders ended up with beautiful fly rods-rods that were instant family heirlooms, and would turn the head of anyone that happened to walk by.

Wayne casting his newly-completed fly rod

Gene casts his newly-built Garrison 212e

Comparing the two newly-built rods was an interesting affair.  The Upper Sac Special felt smooth and throughout its length and the Garrison 212e was obviously stronger in the butt.  Gene had remarked during planing that Waynes numbers on his planing form were almost identical to his.  But what a difference in the actions! After giving their rods a thorough work out,   Gene and Wayne put their rods in the tubes, and were on their way home!

Cork grips and ferrules, sanding and dipping were done and now the fun part of wrapping their rods was on the schedule.

A combination of YLI and Pearsalls threads made the color of the bamboo really stand out.  After the non-stop build days of Sunday through Wednesday, a little sit down time was in order.  Because of the tapers Gene and Wayne chose, they were able to use size 14 ferrules made right here at Raine Hollowbuilt Fly Rods!

Wayne wraps his bamboo fly rod

Gene wraps his bamboo fly rod

Well, Wednesday was a blur!  Wayne and Gene got their bamboo rod sections glued up and they came out of the binder straight!

The instructor forgot the camera, so no photos  of Wednesday.

Here is one of Wayne admiring the efficiency of the air vise when it comes to straightening nodes:

Look ma, no hands!

The “straightening suite” used in the rod building class is simply top-drawer!  The combination of heat gun, Waara node press and air vice makes the classic work of node straightening a breeze!

It’s important to realize that heat gun temp and length of jaws on the air vises play an important role in “getting it right”.

We don’t saw strips.  We don’t grind down enamel here at the school.  No short cuts!  All of the steps are “Old School”, guaranteed to give you the look and performance equal to the masters of 60 years ago!

There is nothing that puts a smile on a rod makers face faster than the happy little sound of a sharp plane iron zipping across a section of bamboo!   Plane, plane, plane!!  Both Gene and Wayne enjoyed the day, amazed at the tiny strips  needed to glue up into their tip sections.

Planing bamboo strips into tip strips

By late afternoon, Gene and Wayne were close to being done with the hard part of the job, when it comes to building  a hand planed bamboo fly rod.