I called Clemen's to order a vertical spine finder. I told the person taking the order that I wanted to use it for building fly rods. She told me that it worked best for large diameter blanks, but did not work well for the smaller diameter fly rod blanks. She said she had problems seating the butt on the conical piece. Has anyone out there had the same experience? Thanks,

I can't imagine why it wouldn't work (although I can see wrapping the butt ends to prevent the cone from causing any split-out when you apply pressure). But she sells them and should know the product.

There is always the possibity of making some sort of an adapter that would hold the butt end and then fit onto the cone. I'd need to give this a bit more thought than I have time for right now, but if you run it through your mind I think you can come up with something that would work.

I've always thought a cup, that the blank fits into, rather than a cone that the blank fits over, might make for a better coupling on these units.

.................

Tom,

I solved this problem by using an adapter to mount a tapered rubber stopper on my Vertical spline finder. The stopper fits into the inside diameter of the rod butt. These stoppers are available at most large hardware stores. The use of rubber stoppers is superior to the metal cone because the stopper can be inserted into the inside diameter of the rod butt with a tight fit. This allows the rod to be almost self-supporting and therefore makes the spline finding much easier to use. (see photograph of spline finder and self standing rod).

The adapter is a 1/4" x 20 stud, which is mounted to the spline finder bearings, and which friction-fits into the center hole of the rubber stopper. With this scheme, any rod butt diameter can be accommodated using only 3 to 4 different diameter tapered rubber stoppers. There is a 1/4" hole drilled through the center of the stopper, which allows the stopper to be friction mounted onto the 1/4" stud.

Photographs of my Vertical spline finder can be seen at the following link:

[members.home.net]

In addition to Spline finding, the calibrated pointer shown in the photograph is used to measure the relative axial torque on sprial mounted guides. The dial allows a measurement of relative torque as a function of a given guide's angular position around the rod. This device is extremely sensitive and with proper (time consuming) use, enables the placement of spiral wrapped guides for absolute minimum rotational twist due to the rod's spline.

Note: I will be unavailable to reply to any questions regarding this post for about 1 week.

John