I am seeking some help in restoring or just redoing a bamboo rod that was given to me. It is a 3 piece 9' Montague Deerfield. According to Michael Sinclair's book "Bamboo Rod Restoration Handbook" it should have a cap & ring reel seat and the stripper guide should be an agatine guide. The rod has a downlocking reel seat without a ring just a locking (threaded) ring. The spacer is blue aluminum and the butt cap is inscribed with "Feather Weight" on the end. The handle is a composition material ( it looks like cork but is not made of cork rings and does not appear to be a sheet of cork wrapped around another material).

What I am thinking is that I would "restore" it to original look. But if it has already been changed I'll just make it fishable with new guides and not worry about original guide type and color of wraps.

Thanks to anyone who is familiar with the Montague - Deerfield and it's original configuration for your help.

Dick

A bamboo rod of this distinction is certainly worth refinishing, but if you can't find the original color scheme on this board, I wouldn't put to much extra time into researching its heritage and "proper" look. That sort of thing is best saved for truely valuable rods. Refinish it and wrap it nicely, preferably with silk, but a Montague is still considered a lower tier production rod with limited monetary or historic value, other than that which you ascribe to it. By all means fish it, but I wouldn't sweat the details too much.

2 cents,

Tim

Dick, visit www.Ricksrods.com. Rick has a huge inventory of parts and pieces for bamboo and fiberglass vintage rods. He can help you with items like agate or agatine guides, ferrules, etc. He may have the other pieces you need, too.

Or you could call Golden Witch who also carries vintage components for restoration jobs and is a sponsor of this site!

I have some montague reelseats.. Thread color I wouldnt worry about because if you read the pages about Montague history and such in Sinclairs book you will find that the wrappers took rods home to be wrapped and they used what ever color of thread on hand. Thanks Dave

Just remember this, that the rod you have or any other bamboo fly rod took anywhere from 30 to 100 hours to build................. unlike some of the modern machinery of today where you can taper the sections and then spend little time for final planing..........