This bamboo blank was made by a fellow local bamboo rod maker which have been making bamboo rods even before I learned to do mine.
Measured at 5 feet plus, this blank definitely need to be extended. But before that, 2 coating of SPAR urethane was given to the blank and let dry for 24 hours.
A carbon graphite blank was used to extend the length of this bamboo rod to 5'6" which is just nice for little streams.
Half wells cork grip and a down locking burled wood insert reel seat for this bamboo rod.
Light wire snake guides and Pearsall's Silk 'Golden Rod' for this rod.
A glimpse of the bamboo rod before a thin epoxy coating is applied to the wrappings.
It is kinda frustrated when you have spent hours straighten, planing, wrapping and finishing a rod, then when the moment of testing , it breaks!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn................
Took a couple of weeks off from making bamboo rod.. or anything to do with bamboo............
Well, I am down but not out. Just completed my 6th set of rough blank last week and I will redo a rod with similar taper as 'Black'.. I have casted 'black' a few times before it broke and it has got nice progressive action. I just got one problem... I've got to find where I placed my taper notes................ sigh...
Just finish my 60ยบ rough strips over the weekends.
There are quite abit of molds on the enamel layer and I decided to darken the strips by heat treatment. The mold and dark spots are now being camouflaged by the dark color of the strips.
This will be my 4th built and the 2nd one for the year 2010. It was faster this time as the rough strip were done last year. This will be another integrated bamboo ferrule bamboo rod based on Sir "D" 7' 4wt taper.
I have to modify it slightly to incorporated the swell for the bamboo ferrule and swell at butt section.
This blank was made from bamboo from Bernam river and the power fiber of this bamboo looks promising.
Construction of the bamboo ferrule was easier this time compared to my 1st BF bamboo rod after I understood the construction concept.
Bamboo rod making, a hobby I picked up 2 years ago after I bought 3 bamboo fly rods through the internet. I was fascinated by their workmanship and how they transformed culms of bamboo into fly rod, the time and labor spent to make the rods.
As modern technology sets in, making these bamboo rod seems to be easier. There are mills that can produce tapered bamboo strips within minutes.One need to invest on the equipments if they want to produce their rod commercially. These rod making machines are indeed expensive.
However, there are still some bamboo rod makers who prefers to craft their rod using traditional methods, splitting the bamboo manually and planing the strip on the planing forms. This is more labor intensive.
My 1st bamboo rod took me almost 12 months to complete as I have to make the tool and equipments for rod making along the process. Adding to that, my slow learning curve of rod making and a lot of trial and errors.
The 2nd rod was a bit faster, it took 6 months to finish. I learned new things along the way. It was an integrated bamboo ferrules rod. Very interesting project. Never knew they did that... never even knew this can be done..
The 3rd one took about the same time, maybe slightly faster. It's a "node less" bamboo rod. Some of my friends call it "chopsticks" fly rod because the strips are made of multi piece of 8' ~ 9' bamboo jointed together. Great concept. But I do not know how long could the joints withstand the stress and the force during fishing even though I did scarfing between every guides on the rod.
It has been a fun journey minus the sweat and body ache. I would say the 3rd rod will not be the last rod I make.......
It's almost to the end of this project.. the rod wraps just need a few coat of varnish and that's it. Another great learning process in bamboo fly rod making.
I guess I will be planning for my 4th one soon....................................
I have been trying to make bamboo rods from bamboo of different area and of different species. It is difficult to differentiate the exact species of bamboo, I must say.
The only method to check whether the bamboo is suitable to make rod is to examine the cross section of the bamboo before I start the process.
I harvested a few culms of local bamboo from Sungai Bernam a couple of months back. The fiber looks dense and very promising. But the color is brownish when it's dried, even when not flamed.
So, the project started. This bamboo is more manageable than the previous bamboo harvested from Sungai Batangsi in Semenyih. It is straighter and have lesser nodes.
The bamboo was flamed and hand split to about 20 strips.
The next step will be straightening. This time, it will be much easier.................
