200501 - Issue 18 Description

Fourth Annual Wonder Rod

In 2001, in the first year of the new millennium, Stan Smartt had a dream of raising money to help the fisheries department of the Great Smoky Mtn. National Park acquire help for the summer. The goal was two fold. First the National Park needs the help. Each year it seems there’s more and more to do with less and less. The National Park Fisheries serve many purposes....

Classic Taper: Lyon & Coulson 7’6” Imperial

Lyon and Coulson was a retail mail order tackle house located in Buffalo, NY. They sold a wide range of outdoor gear from the 1920’s through the 1940’s. The main rod supplier to L&C was Heddon. Unlike some other tackle houses, L&C did little to change the appearance of the standard Heddon line except to give the rods their own model designations. Mike Sinclair gives the following equivalents: Deluxe = Heddon #35, Regent = Heddon #20, Imperial = Heddon #17, Crown = Heddon #14...

Hollow Building Rods, Part I

In the last issue I discussed the benefits of hollow building rods. This installment will help you to achieve results similar to the hollow built rods of E.C. Powell and his devotees. The Powell rod is simply one style of hollow made rod, and its manufacturing process is well within the grasp of the average hobbyist rodmaker. The Lew Stoner/Winston method of hollow fluting a rod is another excellent method, but...

Potassium Permanganate Toning

I first learned of using potassium permanganate to color rods from a short paragraph in an old book that had a chapter on making cane rods. I don’t remember the name of this book, but I do remember it’s the one thing I learned from this outdated text. I mainly use this method when....

Catskills Rod Gathering 2004

The Catskills hold a special place in my heart. I lived in Delaware County for a number of years in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I spent some of that time going to college, then running my own restaurant, and guiding fishing and hunting throughout Delaware and the surrounding counties.

When September rolls around, I get pretty excited about heading back to my old stomping grounds, and attending...

Bamboo Reel Seat Inserts and Aluminum Hardware

To tell you the truth, a bamboo insert is not my favorite reel seat insert. I like reel seats with burl wood inserts best. The picture above is the reel seat made from stabilized maple burl and nickel silver hardware that I turned. A nice rod should have a nice reel seat. That is my fundamental opinion.

But for some occasions, I have to make a reel seat in a very short period of time or with less effort. For instance, when I make test rods, I do not like to spend a lot of time to make the best reel seat....

A Bamboo Rod Love Story

One interesting episode of my fly fishing life is the unexpected story of this bamboo rod and how I ended up with it as the result of a combination of events that lead to this special story that has more to do with serendipity than with pure intention.

Back in late 2003 I went to visit my friend Marcelo Calviello, whom I hadn’t seen for over a decade, at his home in Bella Vista, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. To my surprise he was making some very fine cane rods with an unusual ferrule of his own design....

Classic Flies: Edson Tiger

Years ago the Antero Reservoir in the South Park Valley of Colorado was among my favorite places to be, fishing and just mucking around. I remember how I would stalk the shoreline with my bow looking for suckers to shoot and with my fly rod stalking the many trout that lived there. In the morning when I awoke from my sleeping bag I would walk down to the shore and it would look like it was raining, there were so many fish rising. Those days I didn’t know much about the place I had run away from home to, but I was starting to learn more and more of the area and my exploration for more places to fly fish was expanding out to some of the small creeks and rivers in the area....

Making Metal Planing Forms, Part II

In the October issue of Power Fibers, I covered smoothing the metal as well as drilling and tapping the push pull holes. In this article I will cover putting the groove in the forms.

The tools you’ll need for this is are: a dial caliper, straight edge, scribe, depth gauge with 60 degree point, triangle file, flat file, felt pen, center gauge...

Straight Nodes Made Easy

In the October issue of Power Fibers, I covered smoothing the metal as well as drilling and tapping the push pull holes. In this article I will cover putting the groove in the forms.

The tools you’ll need for this is are: a dial caliper, straight edge, scribe, depth gauge with 60 degree point, triangle file, flat file, felt pen, center gauge...

Building the Universal Ferrule

In The Planing Form No. 77 (Sept/Oct
2002), I wrote about “A Universal Ferrule for any Bamboo Rod.” In this article, I want to describe how I make the Universal Ferrule.

This summer I demonstrated building the Universal Ferrule on a two-piece quad bland that Bill Fink had built. The demonstration took....

A Fish Story

Yesterday my husband surprised me with a 40th birthday party! The surprise was that my 40th was 8 years ago, so needless to say it was a nice surprise.

My husband and one of my best friends conspired to put this small soiree together without my knowledge. Coming from a man whom, when we first...

January 2005Issue 18