In this post:
1) Inspecting the Blank
2) Fitting and Affixing Ferrules
3) Cutting to Length and Affixing Tiptops
4) Adding Cork

The biggest danger I’ve found in rod making is a desire to hurry. Inevitably hurry leads to a misstep and an imperfect product. At this stage in the process – so close to the end – the temptation to hurry...

In this post:
1) Gluing Up

One special note at the outset here: the further along I get in this process, the more indebted I feel to Lee (hexrod on this forum). Lee is a bamboo fly rod maker in Lincoln and his advice and guidance has become essential to me! I’m not sure if Lee still visits the forum, but if so, thanks Lee!!!

So anyway…...

In this post:
1) Final Planing

After a long fishing hiatus, I finally returned to making my first bamboo fly rod. I’m pleased to say, I have officially completed final planing and my rod is ready for glue.

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of final planing in making bamboo fly rods. Final planing is everything. All the work that comes before final planing is mere prologue. Everything that follows is simply epilogue. This IS the art...

In this post:
1) Experiments in Heat Treating
2) Heat Treating My Sections

1) Experiments in Heat Treating

Once my oven was up and running, I ran several tests with various pieces of scrap bamboo. I wanted to be sure my oven wouldn’t completely ruin bamboo strips and I wanted to better understand changes in the bamboo before and after heat treating. Although the tests were far from scientific, I set them up in that manner.

Null...

In this post:
Building Bamboo Ovens

Partly for the sake of learning, and partly because we were drawn to different oven styles, our upstart rod shop decided to build two ovens. My dad and George would build a heat-gun oven, and I would build a torch oven. Here’s how things went.

A. Building a Heat-Gun Oven
The heat-gun oven built by my dad and George modifies the standard design with a popular alternative. Instead of a vertical oven that efficiently...