Ralph wrote an article last year in RodMaker about how to make multi-piece rods. Just want to thank him publicly for writing it. I successfully built a multi-piece casting rod from the article and now with his assistance have just completed a 2 piece stand-up fast taper #30 rod.

Thanks again Ralph and thanks Tom for publishing such articles.

Chris,
I've been waveringon whether or not I want to try it myself. Where did you get the material for the ferrules?

My wife calls me a collector of junk. I've been collecting broken rods I've seen discarded in the fishing "fields". So for my casting rods I can use that.

For the standup rod, because it has a fast taper it was tough to find a right ferrule. I went around to two tackle/rod building and "borrowed" all the stuff to see which would fit. None did. I almost gave up and considered the option of buying another brand new standup blank to make into a ferrule.

However I ended up using 2 cut off butts. A smaller one I bored the internal I.D. to the correct taper (not at all easy), then I sanded down the outside to fit into a larger cutoff butt blank. And I had my ferrule.

This took almost 8 hours work, including the messing around. I've another 50# standup to do and it should take about 4+hours as I now know exactly what to do.

The hardest part is cutting up the perfectly good blank. It hurts, till you assemble the ferrule.

What is the point in making a short stand up rod into a two peice?

Stuart

It becomes 3 feet instead of 5'6". I thought that was obvious.

I hate lugging a 6 foot tube through the airport. And getting it in vehicles etc.

If I'm going for a dedicated long range fishing trip I don't mind. But I do a lot of casual off beat fishing in between jobs where fishing might be a maybe, so I prefer the ease of a short tube.

Same reason why I prefer 4 piece fly rods over 2 piece.

With the new airline restrictions we are under, multi-piece rods will be more valued than ever. Most of these rods will have to be checked, so if you can get it inside a suitcase, so much the better. Stand alone rod tubes remain a target for theft.

Chris - I am sure we will all be interested to hear how your rod performs. Ferrule making is one of the hardest and most demanding aspects of custom rod building.

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Tom, today I taped on the guides (spiral system) and in the testing of this 30# (or 25#) class rod. I've been lifting 17.5lbs of weight plates up to 45 from horizontal to test the guide placing (Done this about 20 times) and the ferrule. This is way above the drag setting I'd normally fish. For 30# I'd normally set the strike to 8-10max. No problem with the ferrule. No creaks or cracking. Feels as solid as rock. I feel I could push it past 20# if need be.

Then you've obviously done a great job! Making ferrules, as you are now aware, is painstaking work.

For the record, Fisher used to make a 50lb class trolling rod in 4 - pieces for the traveling angler. I sometimes remind people of this when they talk about multi-piece rods being "weak".

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