200904 - Issue 35 Description

April 2009
Issue 35

Power Fibers is published in Adobe Acrobat format. To view the magazine, you must download the Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can get it here.

To get this issue, order the 2009 Issue CD on the “Backissue CDs” page.

The April, 2009 issue of Power Fibers contains:

Miramas Gathering

On Saturday and Sunday, the 15th and 16th of November 2008, a sunny but cold week-end because of a Mistral wind blowing from the North, a group of 14 Italian bamboo rod makers all belonging to the IBRA association met with French colleague Pierre Perrot, the head of the local Miramas Fly Angling Club, along with his fellow members...

Product Review: Maxwell Rough Mill

I must confess, I am a tool junkie. This roughing mill most certainly scratches that itch that I had been feeling for a long time. I appreciate fine tools just as much as fine rods. This rougher is the Ferrari of roughers. In addition to roughing out strips, it also does an exceptional job at rough tapering them down far enough that I barely have any work left...

Dreaming Stage

Every time I start a new bunch of rods many things flow around my mind. In the first part of this work, I selected each cane, trying to listen what each piece of cane is trying to say. This part of the work (when you split the cane and then work over the nodes) is very special...

Splitting Cane

The first culm I split looked like a bunch of spears with tapered points. I was trying to split 1/4" strips off the half culm. As I now know, this method does not work. I then saw somewhere to split half, half and half. That worked ok till I had three strips coming off a section....

Development of the Two String Binder

The binding operation completes a rather irreversible phase in rod building. After meticulous and exacting work the six strips are now bound together. Like in marriage for better or worse. They had better be right or you start over. Bends and twists can be corrected....

Making a Wooden Plane

I decided to build a wood plane to use in my bamboo rodmaking. So I first read David Finck's book Making and Mastering Wood Planes. This book is very good and goes into extreme detail, well worth the read, as my directions just scratch the surface. He also sells plane blades if you are going to purchase...

Fishing Bamboo - The Twins

Labrador! My mind raced when I finally grasped that we were going, we were actually going. Granite shield, stunted black spruce, a remote lodge on sparsely fished waters, float planes dropping easily out of the clouds and onto an angler’s paradise. How could it get better...

Joe’s Rod Shop Tutorials - Scraper Blade Sharpening

Here are the things we will need:

First some sandpaper. I like to use the 3M self adhesive or PSA paper that comes in a roll. This stuff is readily available at any auto body paint store and yes, it is 150 grit. You can use 180 if you please. You can use any sandpaper...

April 2009Issue 35