Zach Matthews
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Travis I just wanted to let you know I seriously appreciate your awesome posts and continued support of this site. Thanks man.
Zach
If I were going to restore this rod, this is what I would do.
First confirm the blank has no separation in between the individual strips of cane. If it does, stop right now and turn to a pro. But assuming the blank itself is still solidly glued up and I am primarily restoring this so that I can fish it myself…
Cut off the guides using a razorblade slid along the cane (not chopped down through the wraps). Procure more silk thread (that red wrap is achieved with a silk thread which is almost hot pink). I’ve wrapped a bamboo rod and it’s not hard. In fact my very first rod ended up on the cover of John Gierach’s latest edition of his book “Fishing Bamboo.” It’s real doable.
Once the blank is free of guides, gently sand with 400 grit sand paper, being careful to stay on the flat edges and not to round off the corners. You are primarily trying to remove grime and bits of old glue/wrap edges, not recover the underlying wood. Once it is sanded, wipe once with acetone to clean off debris, then lightly coat it in tung oil varnish. This can be painted on but the best way would be to actually tape the ferrules off and dip the rod in a thin tube (say 1/2″ PVC), slowly drawing it out to ensure a perfectly even coating, then brushing away the excess as it drips off. When the coating is tacky but not totally set up, remove the tape to free the ferrules. Those are glued on to the blank before cosmetic wrapping anyway.
Once the blank is re-varnished, simply replace the guides using instructions to be found anywhere on the internet. It’s not hard. You can do it with some thread, some masking tape, a book or two for a tensioner and a cereal bowl. I used this book:
Now, as for the ferrules and the reel seat. Those are likely to be nickel silver. When you’ve cut the guides off and lightly sanded the blank but before the varnish dip, take the opportunity to polish those very thoroughly with Nevr-Dull or similar metal cleaning wadding. Technically this is a nickel (not a pure silver) so silver cleaner probably isn’t the best choice. Buff with a cotton tip on a Dremel tool if necessary.
The cork grip you have there is salvageable but will require some work. First off you are going to tape the (sanded) blank and (cleaned) reel seat off very thoroughly, then aggressively sand through the exterior coating of crap with probably 150 grit sand paper. You’re not trying to alter the shape so you don’t need a lathe; just some elbow grease. It looks like you have some damage as well, so you’re going to buy a pale quality cork ring from a rod supply house and grind it up using a coffee grinder or possibly some very very rough grit sand paper. Conserve the cork dust. You will mix this with U-40 rod bond product (http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/rod-building-epoxy/029110400005.aspx) to make a paste, which you will then use to fill any serious holes in the cork. Let dry, then sand again using 150 then 400 grit paper to finish. That’s all you need to do with the grip; you can make it almost look new again this way.
Finally once your parts are clean, your rod is re-varnished, and the guides are re-wrapped, you will finish the rod by carefully wetting out each guide with a very very very very thin coating of more tung oil varnish. This might require up to seven applications but eventually the silk thread will wet out and look like glass, assuming you packed it tightly and wrapped it right.
Is all of this worth it? Maybe not, but if you’re interested in rod building it would certainly be a good project rod.
Here’s my final version:
Nice to meet you Hillbilly. What part of Arkansas are you moving back to? I would assume with a handle like that it’s up north…
Zach
Amazing Jay. You guys do a great job. Were you shooting with a snooted speedlight or did you just have great outdoor light?
Interesting to see the real thing. Thanks David. The effect really works best with a whole lot of depth in the frame, doesn’t it? With close in shots it just ends up looking like a focusing blur, sort of a kind of vignette as it were. The ‘model train’ effect only really happens with the really deep shots.
Cool guys.
Zach
Ralph it looks like the plug in was bugged by the addition of that Subscribe link at the top of the page. The plug in author is working on it and I’ll implement the fix as soon as he can write it.
Zach
Oh hey Ralph, thanks for pointing that out. Probably got messed up when I upgraded. I will try to get it running again.
Zach
Hey David –
I probably need to go back through it at some point and organize the flow a little better but you get the idea. Some of it is out of order and I’d like to explain Andrew’s method of making push pole brackets better. Those things have been absolutely perfect. They have now lasted over three years with no change whatsoever except a little paint wear. I regularly trailer my boat on the interstates with those holding in the push pole.
I also have a lot better ‘after’ photo around here somewhere but I am having trouble locating it.
Zach
I think the key is to understand what a shootout like this is and is not. I can’t think of many instances where any test like this doesn’t have a significant level of bias. Especially once they start including fun to fish/got to have as a category it lets you know that personal preference is 7% of the value in a test where the overall variance was only ~15%.
My personal take away is that excluding suitability of specific characteristics to a caster’s style there is no discernible difference in performance quality between the top 7 rods. If someone has an extra $600 to spend because they like a name or think it looks better then good on them.
Additionally, as long as we have forums like this I would never use a shootout like this to make a decision when I can discuss it here until somebody decides to take me out and show me the difference
But it sure does make for some fun discussions.
Clay that was extremely cogent analysis, and you broke it down a lot better than I did.
Ha! I didn’t even notice that. He’s obviously getting it done though! Joao that might be a little hard on your fly line man. 🙂
Zach
Travis you are just a fishy dude, you know that?
I think the Lanier striper fishermen pretty much follow that same plan. Jay Malyon on here knows about that. But that’s a big boy boat lake, not Gheenoe water. Lanier is a big reservoir.
Zach
Clay I really think it’s unlikely based on what I’ve gathered. There are definitely residents there, but I just don’t think they’re very targetable on flies this time of year. You might stake out a section with cutbait Judah Clark style, but it would be pretty cold and boring.
I’m really just getting going with those. My goal has been to recharge all segments of the site. We have had a ton of new articles, the photoblog is now loaded on a daily basis through the end of march, I’ve already recorded three new podcasts that are not yet released (I am trying to get 8-10 lined up), and I’m going to try to do one gear review per day.
I know back catalog browsing is not the typical pattern for any site so I’m systematically going through and refreshing the layout on many older articles then bringing them back to the attention of people on twitter. My real goal in all this is mostly just to get the board jump started again. It had a lot of issues as we’ve discussed around the Facebook thing, but I think the #1 issue was that I kind of walked away around the time of my divorce.
Everything is better now so I’m trying to sort things out here as well.
Zach
Randy I use it for baseball games only–and I usually keep the volume turned all the way down to save battery power. Works pretty well! Baseball broadcasts are about like listening to crop reports; not too disruptive.
Glad you’re checking out the new section; thanks man.
Zach
Joao from what I read on the history of Madeira, it looks like those canals date all the way back to the 15th century in some cases. Do the fish actually swim into them in any area?
Zach
That is SO awesome. Wow. Thanks a ton Joao for posting this. Do you know what strains of rainbow trout were stocked? Those are quite colorful; obviously they had to come from the western U.S. Were there native species of fish on Madeira? I had the idea that it was a much smaller place than what those pictures make it appear to be.
If someone wanted to come there how would they go? Through Lisbon? I assume there is air service? What about the logistics of fishing on the Island? Do you need an island-wide license or do you rent beats European-style? That fishery looks closest to what I saw in the Appalachians of Vermont.
Zach
Ha! Mike, look what became of one of those photos we submitted to Wikipedia!
http://www.thefeaturedcreature.com/2014/01/10-sneakiest-conniving-animals-world.html
This super weird website run by a girl waaaaay too attractive to be the only one in charge over there snaked one of the photos!
Zach