Power Fibers Issue 46

January, 2012 (Volume 46)

D e d i c a t e d t o t h e M a k i n g o f F i n e

B a m b o o F l y R o d s

Inside this issue:

The First Cast 5

The Italian Job: Living the Bamboo New Age II

8

Taking Care of Your Bamboo

16

Applying CA to Cocobolo

24

History of Cork 29

Making Bamboo Ferrules

33

Rod Drying Box 41

The Cabin Build 47

Photos Courtesy of Chip Drozenski/Eduardo Dona (www.andesdrifters.com)

J A N U A R Y , 2 0 1 2 ( V o l u m e 4 6 ) P a g e 2

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New Offering We at Power Fibers have decided to offer web site hosting services for anyone who wants to set up a web site at an affordable price. We’re offer-ing space for you to upload your site along with a secure login to maintain the site. If you’re interested in more information, send a message to [email protected].

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The First Cast Todd Talsma, Editor

Power Fibers

Online Magazine

Editor

Todd Talsma

Contributors

Bahn, Scott

Hossack, Ron

Killian, Ken

Loureiro, Joaquim

Oberg, Mats

Ovidiu, Olar

Tirocchi, Massimo

Copy Editors

Bret Reiter Carol Talsma Mark Wendt

Advisory Board

Russ Gooding Bob Maulucci

Bob Nunley J.D. Wagner

For more info contact:

Todd Talsma [email protected]

8412 North Maple Court Zeeland MI 49464

616.772.5043 Copyright © 2011 by Power Fibers

Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to have enough material to put out an-other issue of the magazine. Well, it never ceases to amaze me that is-sues come together the way they do. Most times, I get these thoughts at the end of the year when I’m getting ready to prepare the first issue of an-other year. I start wondering further if I’m going to be able to produce an issue that’s going to do justice to the past. The doubts are usually un-founded, but they are still there. That’s about the time that something happens to bring back the energy and make me search for more material. This time, I received a letter from a subscriber that’s been with the maga-zine for a long time (Dave, I think you know who I’m talking about). This letter gave me the reason of why I’m doing what I’m doing. Mak-ing a difference in one person’s life makes everything worth every min-ute that I put in to bringing these issues to you. One of the most interesting articles in this issue to me is the final article by Mats Oberg on the journey he went through building a cabin. I’ve seen some other information that Mats has written about the cabin, but it was pretty interesting to read and see what they actually did to get the cabin built. As I state at the beginning of the article, I’d love to have a place like this and I’d love to hear from other people about their fishing places.

I can always use more ideas, feel free to contact me. If you have a sugges-tion about improving Power Fibers, drop me an email at the following e m a i l a d d r e s s : p o w e r [email protected]

Warning!

Because many aspects of bam-boo rodmaking bring the maker in contact with machinery, bladed tools, volatile chemicals and gases, the editor and advi-sory board of Power Fibers ask you to exercise the utmost cau-tion when attempting to build or mimic any devices or activi-ties mentioned in this magazine.

Please have any devices you build and use in your shop checked by a safety professional before attempting to use such devices. This is to guarantee your personal safety and that of others around you.

If you choose to build any de-vice or use any technique found in this magazine, you are doing so at your own risk.




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The Italian Job: Living the Bamboo New Age II Text, figures and photos by Massimo Tirrochi

Introduction This brief article aims to go a little more deeply into some aspects that have been described in the previous article published in the October Issue of the Power Fibers magazine with the title Living the Bamboo New Age: the Italian Job. As usual, I’ll approach these technical issues using simplicity, avoiding a pure mathematical and scientific approach in order to make these ideas easily understood and discussed. Does it make sense to speak about Fast or Slow rod actions? About this point several and very exaustive materials have been written in the past years, so now we recall some of those concepts using them to approach a new way to describe the action of a fly fishing rod. Dr. Hoffman and others have shown in the past ("Fly Rod Response" published in the January, 1998 issue of the Journal of Sound and Vibration) that talks about rods with fast or slow action. It means almost nothing. Also the very common method to lock a rod on a table and put a weight on its tip can show us how the rod bends, but the information we can get from this approach are not exhaustive enough to understand the real behavoir of our fishing tools during their use. In fact, if we want to achieve an objective starting point of view about how a rod behaves during casting, and also if we want have some more info to give the right line weight to that rod, we should talk about its natural frequency. In the October issue article, we assumed that frequency is equal to stiffness/weight. Starting from this point we also said that stiffness is not equal to “fastness” otherwise a broomstick should be the fastest rod in the market, and also the cheapest one. (This point is really interesting if we want to find an answer to this question: how does hollow building affect the bamboo rod’s action? For sure hollowing a rod we lose something in terms of stiffness, but it is also true that we get an advantage in terms of weight lost.) We also said that rods with an higher natural frequency (usually rods with very light tips) have a higher response to the input of the caster and this makes it easier to perform casting with high line speed (yes…!!!! fast or slow can be the way that line reaches the water; a rod can’t be fast or slow, a rod can have an higher or lower response to our input and this is related to its natural frequency). Despite the natural frequency, the rod gives to us a lot of information. We can try to make a little step beyond it trying to reach what we’ll call the Reactive Rod. To do this let’s recall some concepts known to most of us. I’m talking about translation and rotation movements. The process aimed to transfer energy from the caster to the line (fly) goes through two main subprocesses. We don’t want to talk about energy in general, we want to talk about how this energy becomes speed applied to the line. A lot of studies say to us that we give speed to our line going throught those two subprocesses: translation and rotation. They also said to us that between these two subprocesses the one that allows us to give the line the biggest quantity of speed is the

(Continued on page 9)


rotation movement (we also know that rotation must be used very carefully with classic style bamboo rods). It’s a quick and sudden rotation (I like to see it as an opening and closing camera diaphragm – quick and short) that as we saw in the article published in the October issue in which we force the rod to go beyond its natural frequency. In this moment (we called this the Boost moment) the rod reaches the 2nd or the 3rd harmonic (also known as 2nd and 3rd mode of vibration). The rod assumes a shape like a wave split in 2/3 parts and we’ll see that each interruption point is represented by a node. When we force the rod into such vibrations, the frequency is equal to two or three times its natural frequency. If we can understand which is the best way for the rod to react to this high vibrations we can also understand the character of a Reactive Fly Fishing Rod. The Reactive Rod First of all, let’s try to make a definition of what a reactive rod should be. The reactive rod should be a rod that allows to the angler to transfer as much speed as possible to the line in the shortest amount of time. From this definition we can understand that the design of the taper must be able to manage, in the best way, the tradeoff between energy storing capacity and how fast this energy will be transferred to the line in terms of speed. A brief and a little bit technical explanation is needed. The total energy of the mechanical wave is obtained by the sum between: ♦ Kinetic energy: that is the energy that each portion of the rod possesses because of its

transverse velocity oscillation. ♦ Potential energy: which is the energy due to elastic deformation of the rod.

A very useful concept for us is not the total amount of the energy but the Density of these two unit measures. ♦ Kinetic energy density: it is maximized when the rod vibrations are at their maximum. ♦ Potential energy density: it is maximized when the rod gets its maximun deformation. If we assume these definitions a Reactive Rod could have the following features: ♦ It must has a natural frequency > 3 to 3.5 cycles per second. ♦ It must be very sensitive in the last 10 inches of the tip (this will facilitate the narrow loops or at

least very tighted loops). ♦ It must have the butt and the tip perfectly syncronized to be able to work like an orchestra

above all in the moment we force the rod until the 3rd harmonic. The first two points should be quite clear. Let’s go deeper above the third one. Looking at the image below we can make the followings considerations:


J A N U A R Y , 2 0 1 2 ( V o l u m e 4 6 ) P a g e 1 0

♦ In case A (typically a rod with a low natural frequency) the 3rd harmonic shows us that there is

a lot of energy, but it needs a long time to reach the line. ♦ In case B, we have a 3rd harmonic quite nice, because the waves store some energy and they

are ready to quickly transfer it to the line. ♦ In the case C, we see a classic stiff rod with a tip action. Here the energy stored is less than the

other two cases. Despite this, it will be the faster to reach the line. Between the three functions described, the one that is better than the others showing what a Reactive rod should be is the case B. In fact it is the one that allows the caster to give his/her line the highest speed in the shortest time. In other terms we could also say that maybe a parabolic action rod is able to store more potential


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energy than a progressive action rod. The parabolic rod won’t easily to transform all that potential energy in kinetic energy and so in speed, while we force it to reach the 3rd harmonic. In the scheme below we also see what a reactive rod should do: We also see what the meaning of a tip and a butt working like an orchestra is. From this point of view a good taper is a taper where all those “bubbole” of energy (bends) are managed in the right way. Trying to understand how they will work one on the other one is the challenge. All those bends that store energy must be very quick on transferring the maximun energy stored in the shortest time to our line. We can also see that in these conditions the last part of the tip will receive an overcharge of energy coming from the other two bends that we see in the last first part of the tip (near to the ferrules) and the last part of the butt. In other words, making a comparison with the world of electricity energy, what we are looking for,


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is a rod able to maximize its “WATT” = the flow of energy that passes through the rod in the unit of time. Conclusions These considerations have been done knowing that: ♦ The perfect rod doesn’t exist. ♦ A lot of more variables play in the fly fishing casting a strategical role. ♦ We can get a lot energy also from the tension of the line.

♦ As great scientists said, “The map is not the territory.”

Consider also what has been said about the 3rd harmonic is something that could be very useful for an experienced caster, but it could be very hard to feel for a beginner. The 3rd harmonic gives us a


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lot of energy but if the caster doesn’t manage it in the right way, its effects to the casting could be very bad. As you can see in the following pics the vibrations have not been managed and you can see the very bad result in term of loop. In fact the tip has not been managed by the caster and it bends too much, opening a wide loop. In fact, during the casting moment called boosting, the caster must have a great sensitivity to create the conditions that bring the rod to the 3rd mode of vibration. Less than one second after this, he/she must be able to avoid all the negative influence. On TLT Casting Style, this is done avoiding the stop moment and opening the hand one moment after the 3rd harmonic has been achieved. In fact, if you open the hand in that moment you’ll “freeze” the rod cutting it into the main pivot rotation. From a rodbuilder point of view I can say that a very critical point in the design of a taper for a such kind of the rods is for sure the butt. Anyway I hope that these points could give some inspiration to the bamboo builder during the design of their taper. When I think high performance bamboo rods I like to imagine them with the same features described by Italo Calvino in his “American Lessons.” In his unforgettable and prophetic “Lezioni Americane” (American Lessons), Italo Calvino created a lucid and straightforward introduction to the literature of the third millennium which he filtered into five categories: lightness, rapidity, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity. These ideas are always “a work in progress.” They come up through an istinctive approach and through intuition, so they could be right or wrong. Any considerations, suggestions, different ideas will be very welcome and analyzed with great interest. A close occasion to do it could be the next Somerset Fly Fishing Show I will attend the next 27, 28 and 29 of January.

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Taking Care of Your Bamboo Text by Scott Bahn
So you took the plunge and bought some bamboo, now what? I’ve wanted to write an article for a while now in regard to how to handle bamboo once you get it home. This topic in theory seems very elementary; however, with the number of new bamboo rod makers that join the listserv every year, it seems to come up as a discussion point from time to time. As with anything in rod making, there are many different ways to accomplish the same thing and no one way is right, but in the following pictures and narrative, I will share with you the way that I take care of my bamboo once it arrives in hopes of giving folks out there an idea, or different way to store it away until you pull out a culm for that next rod. I will admit that the method I use to take care of my bamboo is time consuming, but there are several reasons why it works for me and saves me time and effort in the long run. Here are the steps I use in the process at a high level: 1. I take each of the 12 foot culms and cut them in half. 2. I then take my 6-way pie splitter and split each of the (now 20) culms in to 6 pieces. 3. I take each of the 6 pieces of each culm and use a 1” gouge to chip out the inner nodal dams. 4. I take these 6 pieces when done and wrap them tight in clear shipping plastic, similar to Cling
Wrap or Saran wrap on each end. 5. I mark them as “Tip” or “Butt” and store them in the floor joists of my basement. There are several reasons to my madness in doing this seemingly easy task. Here they are: 1. The best investment I ever made in a simple tool was a 6-way pie splitter. When I take care of

the bamboo right out of the bale, I can split each culm in 6 equal pieces. Splitting them in 6 pieces allows me to then split each of these in to 4 strips, making 24 total per culm which meets my preferred width I am looking for when making a rod.

2. When I get the bamboo from the supplier, very few of the culms have developed a drying split on their own, so this makes it really easy to get 6 equal pieces out of a culm. The one thing I never liked to do was just put one drying split down the middle of the culm and leave it. What happens over time is that the drying split will open up farther and farther making quite a gap. If you then try to use a pie splitter later on, you will have 2 pieces out of the 6 that will be smaller than the rest making it a little harder to split the strips as I like. I like to continually split everything in half using a good hunting knife, Buck to be exact.

3. By taking care of the bamboo right away, you avoid a drying split developing on its own and traveling where you don’t want it to.

4. By using the pie splitter right away, I can examine the culms and split them where I want them to go, not where they may want to go on their own later on if I do nothing. I can split the culms to go where I want to when dealing with leaf nodes, water marks, bug holes, etc.

5. I have limited storage in my basement, so by using my method, I can get the culms off the floor and out of my way, high and dry.

So take a look at the pictures and the narrative with each and hopefully this will be helpful or spark an idea as to how you want to handle your bamboo until you choose a culm for your next rod.




The Tools needed (don’t forget the gloves!)

A bale of bamboo laid out on saw horses. Here I can inspect the culms and get an idea of the grade of each. Note that none have drying splits yet except the one on the far right bottom of the picture.

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First, I cut each culm in half.

Next, I split each culm with the 6-way pie splitter.

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All of the culms have been split and laid out.

Using the 1” gouge to chip out the inner nodal dams. This allows the pieces to lay together for wrapping, but I also believe that by removing them, it makes the splitting process easier later.

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A view after the inner nodal dam is removed. Nice and flat for storage.

I put a large roll of plastic wrap on a dowel, clamp it to my saw horse and wrap up each culm in to a neatly bundled package.

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This is a view of some of the bamboo in the ceiling of my basement. I run a few 1” x 4” boards across three to four floor joists for support and put the bamboo up there and out of the way high and dry!

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Applying CA to Cocobolo Text and Photos by Ron Hossack
One of the prettiest woods out there is Cocobolo. It is also one of the hardest to accept a finish. Someone asked me how I apply CA to cocobolo at the pen club meeting and here's my method. Here we have a piece of BOW, a nice Chokecherry Burl, a Xcut Cocobolo and a piece of Rocky Mountain Juniper. If you look closely at the X-Cut piece of cocobolo it started out life to be an insert for a BUL5 skeleton but it literally exploded on me ... pieces of shrapnel went all over the place. There's enough left to attempt a Wall Street II pen so I'll have a go at it.

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The seat must be water proof for fly fishing because your reel seat sometimes spends more time in the water than out of it. Cocobolo (and all Rosewood timber) is a very oily and resinous wood and doesn't take a finish very well. Cocobolo is oily enough you can just polish and get a good shine but that doesn't fit the bill for a reel seat. I don't remember where I learned this trick but it does work and makes the wood shinier than before. These are the participants in this endeavor. We have a bottle of 70% Isopropyl and I've used 91% rubbing alcohol also (use DNA if you want but it's a waste of $$$), a pen tube from Woodcraft an eye bolt and a fender washer and the Sumo glue I used in this test. The goal is to remove the resin so the CA will adhere to the blank.


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Isopropyl filled half way up tube and wood placed in it. It's been in there 60 seconds and you can see the oils being pulled from the wood. I give it two baths, 30 minutes each in duration.


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Below is what the wood looks like after the baths. No color, plain and quite ugly. It is mounted between centers so I can apply CA. There is some minor raising of the grain that is taken care of with some 0000 steel wool.

Four coats of Med CA and polished with Tri-M-Ite polishing paper that jewelers use. It may not have made it as a reel seat but may I present to you a Wallstreet II Click Pen wearing a nice piece of X-Cut Cocobolo.

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History of Cork Text and photos by Joaquim Loureiro

Cork is the bark of cork oak (Quercus Suber L), a noble tree with very special characteristics that grows in Mediterranean regions such as Spain, Italy, France, Morocco, Algeria, and especially Portugal, where there are more than 720,000 hectares of cork oak forests, as well as a cork industry of great economic importance. It is an astonishing tree of great longevity and a great capacity for regeneration. It can live on average 150 to 200 years, despite the many harvests are made throughout its life: about 16 harvests interspersed by nine year periods of no harvests. This plant tissue which is harvested carefully - cork - has unique qualities. Unique and to date no human ingenuity could mimic or exceed: 1. Very light 2. Impermeable to liquids and gases 3. Elastic and compressible 4. Excellent thermal and acoustic properties 5. Low combustion 6. Very resistant to abrasion But it is, above all, a one hundred percent natural material. Recyclable and biodegradable, essential



qualities in our current society where you want less pollution and environmentally friendly properties. Despite its many uses, for centuries the most faithful ambassador of cork stoppers in the world is natural. This seal of exceptional quality is still preferred and demanded by the major wine producers. But throughout history, there have been many references to this product and its varied applications. In 3000 BC, cork was in use in China, Egypt, Babylon and Persia for the manufacture of fishing tackle. In Italy we found remains dating from the fourth century BC, including artifacts such as floats, stoppers for casks, women's shoes and roofing materials. It is also this time we have one of the first references to the cork oak, by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, in his botanical treatises, he says, amazed, "The faculty that this tree has to renew its bark after it is removed." Even in the Roman Empire 44 a. C, the troops made the shields of protection in cork due to its strength and lightness of this wonderful natural product. Portugal can boast of having been a pioneer in environmental legislation, as the early agrarian laws protecting cork forests appear at the beginning of the thirteenth century, in 1209. Later, during the Discoveries, the builders of ships and Portuguese caravans that set out to discover new worlds used oak wood in the manufacture of parts exposed to the elements. They argued that the "thrash" as it was then called, was what was best for the bond of the ships, as well as strong, and it never rotted. The life cycle of the cork as a raw material begins with the extraction of the cork bark, called stripping, which takes place during the most active growth time of the cork, between mid-May or early June to late August. Few know that it takes 25 years until the trunk of a cork oak begins to produce and be profitable. Each trunk has to reach a circumference of about 70 cm when measured at 1.5 meters from the ground. After that, its operation will last 150 years on average. The first stripping, called Desbois, yields a cork with very irregular structure with a hardness that makes it difficult to work. It's called virgin cork to be used in applications other than corks (flooring, insulation etc.), because it is far from presenting the quality needed for this purpose. Nine years later, the second harvest, we obtain a material with a regular structure, less hard, but still not suitable for the manufacture of corks and so-called secondary cork. It is only in the third and subsequent harvests, you get the cork with the appropriate properties for the production of cork stoppers and discs of quality, since it already has a regular structure with smooth back and tummy. It's called cork amadia or reproduction. From this point, the cork will provide, every nine years, cork with good quality for about a century and a half, producing an average of 15 to 16 harvests throughout his life. But how do you take off the cork tree? The stripping of the cork oak is an ancient process that can only be done by specialists, the debarkers, so as not to harm the tree, it requires much manual skill and experience. It consists of five steps: 1. First strike to the tree is in the vertical direction, choosing the deepest crack the shell. At the

same time, twist the ax to separate the inner bark. Then separate the board with the introduction of the hatchet between the board and the inner bark of belly. Then, you run a twisting movement



of the hatchet between the trunk and the cork strip to be separate. A horizontal cut defines the size of the board of cork that is removed from the tree.

2. The board is then carefully removed from the tree. The larger the planks extracted, the greater its market value. It is the skill of debarkers that allows us to obtain the entire board.

3. Withdrawal first board, these operations are repeated for the whole trunk. 4. After extraction of the boards, adherent fragments of cork remain at the base of the trunk. To

remove any parasites that exist in cork shims, the harvester gives a few blows with the ax. 5. Finally, mark up the tree, using the last number of years in which the extraction took place. So we could say that you could already make the discs that are called for when making fishing rods, but there is still a long way before it can make that object. After removal of the mortar so desired, the cork planks are stacked in the forest or on construction sites within the premises of a factory. There they remain exposed outdoors, to the sun and rain. However, all batteries are constructed taking into account its own rules and very strict in order to allow the stabilization of the cork. They must be stacked on materials that do not contaminate the cork and prevent contact with soil. Wood, for example, is expressly prohibited because it can transmit fungi. During this period of rest, it allows the maturation of the raw material and the cork also stabilizes. This period of rest of the cork boards is no less than six months. After six months of stabilization, the cork is cooked in boiling water for one hour. After boiling the cork, it's back to rest for 3 weeks to get the consistency needed for its transformation into stoppers, discs, skin, etc. It is never too often repeated that the cork is a natural, recyclable and reusable. To take advantage of and preserve this valuable resource, a growing number of countries have made efforts to carry out recycling initiatives in order to raise awareness among local people for the wealth of material. Although recycled cork is never reused to produce corks for wines or disks for fishing rods, there are many other possible alternative applications. For example, bulletin boards, bookmarks, coasters, flooring or insulation material. So my friends, rodmakers and rodbuilders, never forget that each cork disc that passes through your hands is the fruit of a tree with a minimum age of 50 years, and that the cork disc has 9 years of growth.


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Making Bamboo Ferrules Text and photos by Olar Ovidiu

It is a known fact that bamboo ferrules offer a more continuous action, a smaller weight, and a much better balance to a rod, than the classic ferrules made of nickel-silver, standard ferrules or even Super Z. Making better, lighter rods is the desire of any bamboo maker. Having this in my mind, I have tried to work a way out to make these ferrules in a simple manner, with fewer tools and less effort. My method is based on the height difference between the stations of the planing form. The height is in direct connection with the width of a strip. Thus, working only with this value, it is enough to make bamboo ferrules. To make things more clear, I will explain it in a few steps, beginning with the planing form transformation, required to be able to make these ferrules. 1. Planing form “transformation” Most of the planing forms have 13 stations, but I am sure that very few of us use the last two or three stations. So, due to this reason, I have “ruined” the last two stations of my forms in order to get something good.


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Modifying the groove between the last two stations of the planing form is based on the ferrule wall thickness that is needed. To get a wall thickness of 1 mm we will increase the depth of the groove with 1.1 mm. The extra 0.1 mm leaves enough material for sanding the finished rod section without affecting the wall thickness. If a thicker wall is wanted, for example 1.3 mm, the groove has to be deeper: 1.3 + 0.1 = 1.4 mm. The point from where we will make the groove deeper with 1.1 mm is 2.5 cm (1’’) away from the 55’’ station of the planing form. This length will offer a smooth pass from the width part of the fer-rule to the taper dimension. It is possible, at choice, to make that even shorter, but in this case, it is needed to heat the strips when they are put together for the final assembly. A schematic view of the modified planing form.

The groove can also be made parallel, but in this case the taper needs to be modified, because the walls of the female ferrule will be parallel. By keeping the decrease, and making the groove following this decrease, the taper remains the same,



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and more, the friction that holds the ferrules together is also generated by the conicity of the taper. To make these changes on the planning form, you will need only these tools .

The method applied is one described by Thomas Penrose, with a few differences. The station before the one we are modifying (in this case station 50) needs to be opened wide enough. In this manner the reamer will not remove any material from the station 55’’ (2.5 cm after this station begins the deeper groove). The station 55” needs to remain intact, because there is the reference point of the taper before the ferrule. 2. Strips preparation The strips are made in the same manner like for any rod, with two differences. • First, make the strips wider than normal. • Secondly, the length of the strips is calculated as following:

Ex.: if the tip section length is 100 cm (40’’) we will add 2.5 cm (1”) the length needed for the slope, (the part where the ferrule begins, and gets thinner to the required value of taper at the sta-tion) and 5 cm, the actual length of the ferrule.

The total length is 100 cm + 2.5 cm + 5 cm = 107.5 cm. If you add another one or two cm in length,



it will help you repair any mistakes that could appear during the planing. This excess can be cut away after the strips are glued together, to get the desired length of ferrule. 3. Planing the strips The planing form is set as the taper requires, except that at the last two stations the depth of the groove is set 1.2 mm bigger than the taper. The last station of the rod section, in our case 40, the value to set is 1.8 + 1.2 mm = 3.00 mm; the next station 45, and it is set at the value 1.9 + 1.2 = 3.1 mm; even though from 40 station the strip is only 7.5 cm and does not arrive at the 45 station. It is better to leave the strips larger with 0.1, up to 0.3 mm, this way any mistakes can be corrected without ruining the strips. • All six strips are planed this way. • We mark each strip with a pen at the last station, before the 7.5 cm. The modified part of the planing is set as following:

Ex: we have a rod, four weight, two pieces. I have chosen random values, just as example.

The middle part of the taper (the half of the rod) is at the station 40 Taper dimensions:

35 1.6 mm 40 1.8 mm 45 1.9 mm 50 2 mm 55 2.2 mm

So the last station for the tip section is 40 with the value of 1.8 mm The first station of the butt section is 0 (as we set this when planing) with the value 1.8 mm; the next station of the butt section has the value of 1.9 mm. We set the planing form for making the ferrule as following:

The 55 station of the planing is set to the value of 1.8mm (the value of the tip at the last point of the taper).

The station 60 is set at 1.9 mm + 1.1 mm = 3 mm (the second station of taper from the butt section has the value 1.9). The station 50 is set at the value 1.6 mm (the value of the station 35 from the tip section taper). Setting only these three stations is enough not to make any mistakes. If you want, you can also adjust the other stations ahead.



The strips are put in this groove with the mark that we have made early at the station 55 (photo below). Any extra marks are good.

All the strips are planed in this groove, carefully removing small parts of the section, one side, one pass of the plane. In this way, we will get even slopes on each side of the strip. When all the strips are planed, we get to the “hollowing” process. The next step is the preliminary assembly, so we can see if there are any gaps between the strips or the strips are not planed equally.

As it can be seen in the photo above, the total length of the ferrule and the part with the slope is 7.5 cm. In my opinion, this length is more than enough to offer strength and to not lose the elasticity of the rod.



The length of the ferrules are made is according with the weight of the rod. For a two weight rod, a ferrule length of 3.5 cm is more than enough. For a three weight, 3.5 – 4 cm, for a five weight, 5 – 5.5 cm. For those who choose to make the wall thickness larger then 1 mm, the ferrule can be made shorter. The advantages of this type of ferrule are obvious for everyone, in regards to the benefits of the fin-ished rod. Another main advantage is that the tools required are minimal, everyone already has them in the “genesis chamber” of bamboo rods. Also, the cost for producing these ferrules is very low, even if the time needed is much longer as precision is a very important factor. The finished result:



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Rod Drying Box Text and photos by Ken Killian
As I have never been asked to write an article for anyone outside of college, I was flattered when Todd contacted me and asked me to do a piece on a drying box I had built. I made the box a few years ago after becoming frustrated with trying to keep dust and other objects off of my drying rods. As any rod builder knows, dust, lint, pet hair, and any other object that is floating around in your rod building room seems to be drawn to your wet finish like a trout to a mayfly hatch. One day I was redoing the finish on one particular rod for the third time, I finally had enough. I jumped online and took a look at different styles of drying boxes. I saw everything from plastic tent covered two-by-fours to very elaborate curio cabinets. I needed something compact, yet large enough to hold two rod turners. I was also limited to a small 10x10 room inside my three bedroom home. Seeing how counter space was also limited, my dryer box had to mount on the wall.
Wall Mounted Dryer Box I sat down and did some quick measurements on paper and figured if I do this right, I could get by with one sheet of plywood, a couple pieces of Plexiglas, a piano hinge and some latches. I went to my local hardware store and bought a sheet of birch plywood along with the rest of my supplies and headed home. Even though this box is being built just to dry rods, I still wanted the aesthetics of it



to be pleasing to the eye, thus using the birch plywood. As I mentioned before, I had to keep the box somewhat compact. Most of the rods I build are four piece rods, so I made the overall length of the box six feet long. So I laid out my measurements on the 4x8 sheet of plywood and cross-cut it at six feet. From there, I ripped two strips to 14 inches (top and bottom), one at 10 (front) and one at nine (back). I cut out the ends of the box to 9x13. I assembled the box so that the overall dimensions would be 72x10x14. I glued all seams and used my brad nailer to reinforce the joints. I cut two large windows into the face of the box to install Plexiglas windows and did the same on the left end. The window on the left end was put in so I can fit longer rods. The window is secured using mirror brackets so it can be removed. I have enough plywood left over to add an extension to the box, so when I do turn a longer rod, it still remains enclosed and away from floating debris. I also used thin foam tape to take up any slack.


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I secured the door, which measures 14x72, using a piano hinge along the entire length of the box. Three drawer latches across the top keep the door secure. I used foam tape along the entire opening of the door to seal out any dust. While I was at the hardware store, I also purchased a string of six under the counter halogen lights. These have 20 watt bulbs and came with all of the hardware to install them. They have a three position dimmer switch as well. I find the middle setting puts out just the right amount of heat to


Removable Side Window Latch on Box Corner

Inside Box with Halogen Lights


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keep the box at 76 degrees. I also bought a two gang outlet box and a couple of switches. I have two PacBay rod turners that I hard-wired into the box so I can turn them on and off from outside the box. I also installed a 3pk of the under counter lights on the bottom of the box to help light up the work bench. There is a switch for that on the panel as well. All this is plugged into a light timer, so I can have it shut off after the specified time.

Under Cabinet Lighting

I am very happy with how this turned out. I have very few issues with dust now and the finish dries nice and smooth.


Rod Dryers Control Box

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Top 3 pieces of a Sage Traditional Spey On a side note, I use the top end of the disposable brushes to hold the rods in the turner. I built up bushings from masking tape to clamp the turner around and use tape to make various sized mandrels to slide into the open ends of the blanks.

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The Cabin Build Text and photos by Mats Oberg Editor’s note: I’d love to have a place like Mats writes about in this article. I’d also be interested
to hear from anyone that has a special place to use as a fishing spot. Hopefully you enjoy the story that Mats tells us about his special place! Here´s the story of how I fell in love with a place and bought a piece of property with no road to it and how I travelled a few times a year in eight years to build what I´ve been wanting for a long time. A logged fishing cabin on a river in the high country up north. I first came to the area in the early eighties with my childhood friend who already had a cabin up there as he wanted to show it to me as well as the nice surroundings. It´s really a nice place with fishing pretty much all over and if you just get off the main road you´ll be able to hit some good fishing spots that haven´t seen too many people.
This was over twenty-five years ago but I already knew back then I was hooked on the place. About ten years ago, which would be fifteen years later, I got the opportunity to buy a piece of land just by this river I knew. This was when the work began.



The first thing was to check out the river just at the supposed location for the cabin. I mean, if the fishing wasn´t any good right there, why should I bother? Well, it seems like the great river spirit liked my company and I was able to hook a brown within just a few minutes and from that moment the spot had my attention. I had the trout for dinner on the river bank and went the 850 kilometers back home and gave the landlord a call. The next winter I headed up there again to sign the contract and make the arrangements for being the owner of the property. The landlord suggested we should take the snowmobile and head up to the spot to make the handshake, which is pretty much the old way of making a deal and I found that to be the only way to do it. So, we went up there, made a fire and got the coffee pot going. On a reindeer hide in the snow by the fire we shook hands with a firm look in the eye and that was it. I was now the official owner of the place. Afterwards we headed back to his place and signed the papers, but that felt just like a formality...

The next summer over a dinner he asked me how I planned to proceed with the project and I said I didn´t have any specific plans yet. It was time to check on a good craftsman who could log a cabin for me. “Well,” he said, “I think you should get yourself a little shack to keep your stuff in meanwhile, as this was a several year project and to be able to keep some stuff under




a roof.” “That´s probably a good idea,” I answered, “but I need to give it some consideration first. Do you have any suggestions?” “Well, I actually have an old little hay barn not far from your place that I want to give to you. It goes with the property and you don´t have to pay me anything for it. But it´s in bad shape withouth any roof, so it´s a bit of work to get it OK.” “Done deal,” I said without thinking too much about the work.... We went to the spot for the old hay barn and that´s when I realized what I had got myself into. The miserable thing looked more like a pile of firewood than a barn. The roof had fallen in, it had sunk down into the ground at least two logs deep and I was only a second or two from saying I had to pass on it. But somehow I saw the potential in the poor pile of logs. So that next fall I was on the spot again, marking the logs for taking it down as you do when you are moving a thing like this and it was actually in pretty good shape for its age and how it first looked.



After half a day of work it was all down and stacked for transport with the snowmobile the next easter (no roads, remember?)

Easter came and the logs were transported up to the spot with the old Yamaha Viking. These are the two first logs as I wanted to get the feel for how the rig handled. It took a good day to finish the job. Good thing my buddy came along with a camera as I didn´t have one myself.



The next summer it was time to set up the little shack. This would make for a good combined outhouse and firewood shed when the whole project was done. But at this time, I just though it was a lot more extra work than my intentions had been. So, here I had a new pile of logs and I was eager to get started. I soon realized I had to get a new good Husky chainsaw as I had to reject about 30 percent of the wall logs and replace them with new wood and also get all the lumber and logs for the roof. I already had an older Husky but this job called for a shiny and brand new orange logging hot rod. Also, the spot needed a clear cut and I managed to gather all the logs for the replacments on the property.



I started out with impregnated telepone poles as bottom turns for making it all safer for rotting from moisture as the north side was not too high above the ground. It became really fun to throw around those spruce logs and after some time I had got some structure on the thing, logging fresh timber for the logs I had rejected.

Several cut down spruce trees later the area for the coming main cabin and the space around it was clear from trees and it felt like I was heading in the right direction with this.


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It felt good to get the steel roof in place to keep tools and stuff dry from rain. The next summer I brought the kids with me to see the logging and I think they thought it was quite cool. We put in some rugged flooring from aspen, a simple door and made a "single seater" in the far corner with a screen wall and it was all set. Now we had us the best outhouse we could ask for. By this time I got in contact with a guy in town who was a skilled logger and I ordered logging for the cabin from him. Not some big fancy stuff, just a cabin with four walls measuring 5X5 meters inside. The problem is to keep a large cabin warm in the winter and especially in springtime when you want to spend time there, so we kept the ceiling quite low, all to keep some "economy" with the firewood.



Here´s the logging in progress in his shop that winter. In the springtime, he took it down and set it up outside to make the remaining logging with the beams.

The kids thought it was pretty fun to see their future cabin and here they are with Peder, the logger.



Now, it´s really bugging me I don´t have any images from when we towed all the logs for the cabin to the property. I simply forgot the camera that trip. Well anyway, the logging stood for 2 years to get it to "calm down" and settle before we took it down in March of 2007 and drove it on a logging truck up to the high country where it was unloaded by the road. My buddy and I towed the logs with the snowmobile the last distance. It took two days to do it and it was really easy with a big Yamaha four stroke Viking. That´s some neat machinery. By midsummer of 2007, we headed up there and started to put the logging together. This is Peder again, the guy who made the logging, waving away mosquitos which were quite numerous that summer. Anders is checking so that everything is ok.

This is in the evening (a day later) and the morning after we started to make the roofing with insulation and all. This time of year there is no dark or even dusk up, there so we worked late hours to get the job done as quickly as possible. I think the photo below is taken about 11.00 PM when




we called it a day. We had an evil overcast with some light rain from time to time which made us speed up the work, as we knew the heavy rain was around the corner.

We started out on Monday by noon with the whole build-up and Peder left us on Thursday afternoon when Anders and I only had the steel roofing left to do. Friday by noon the roof was sealed and it started to rain. It rained for four days in a row and we were just plain lucky it didn´t come over us earlier, insulation and all.... Later that year I went up there again to do some work. It was in September and well in to fall with beautiful colors. As there´s no road, I had to go four wheeling with the lumber on the truck the last distance and then



carry the stuff on my shoulder up to the cabin. This is as far as I can get, with the rear wheels backed down into the little brook to unload the lumber. On the bed is the flooring beams, the porch and the supporting beams for the porch and the "brimmed" roof. The flooring beams from black spruce measuring 3'' X 8'' and 15 feet long weren´t exactly light to carry uphill.

This is what I´ll see every time I sit down by the table. Could be worse. Could be concrete...




The following summer of 2008, the flooring and the windows were in place and also some other stuff like the porch and such.

Summer of 2009, and now the beloved cabin has all the windows, door, staircase, porch and the wood stove in place.


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In the summer in 2010, a simple kitchen with a propane stove and also a couple of beds were installed. So now, even myself, will be able to call it completed, even though some improvements are on the list. But this is good, this is just what you need. My son and I spent a few nights there in August and it was...rewarding.




It´s been a long journey from that handshake to this point, not to mention the long distance and all the planning to get everything to work out and not forgetting anything. I logged all the lumber for the place and sawed it on my sawmill at the farmplace and drove it the 350 Kilometers on the truck up there, so it has been a few trips during these eight years. And I had 1700 Kilometer back and forth from Stockholm each trip. But it sure feels good now when it´s done! Now we have some fishing to catch up with.

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Power Fibers Issue 46

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