With every blank I buy before doing anything else, I always put it together and put a slight bend in it by bending it against the carpeted floor a bit just to see if the action is what I'm looking for. Now I know your supposed to wrap the ferrul first, but in 50 or so blanks I've done it with I've never had one break, that is until Friday. Put first blank together, slight bend and "snap" broken ferrul. Hmmm. Put next blank of same make, wt, lngh etc..., together and again, almost immediately "snap"! Now as I said, I've never had this happen before. Do a quick look at the female ferrul where they snapped and it appear the wall where they snapped is thinner than the rest of the wall. I have tied one of this make up before and tested it the same way and had no problem.

Am I wrong for expecting them to hole up to putting a a slight bend in them before tieing? If I would have wrapped the ferrul, do you think they still would have broken in use? This now has me worried that I'll spend the time to tie up the remaning blanks from this order only to have them brake while using.

Thanks

Wrapping the ferrule will prevent a split-out, but not much else. Where did they break? Did the break start at the ferrule edge? Or did it pop at the point where the top of the male resides inside the femaie? If the former is the case, then wrapping would have helped. If the latter, then wrapping would not have helped and you probably got a couple of bum blanks.

Siimple flexing of a multi-piece blank without the wrapping of the ferrule/s should not be a problem. But I'd never load one severely without having those ferrules wrapped.

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

Gene - After you wrap the ferrules, then you could load the blanks in this batch and check for a batch-type failure. If it's gonna break after you build it, because of a bum batch, I would think you'd like to stress the blank by spining it and testing it first in your static load distribution test. Before you invest hours of work in it.

Gene, I think it would be well worth your time to read my comments on this subject in a recent Thread by Peter Mulbjerg. In fact, all the Replies were excellent and merit careful consideration. Tom Kirkman, Ken Preston, Emory Harry, Todd Vivian (of LamiGlas) all had something important to add. [www.rodbuilding.org]

*** Re: Lamiglas fiberglass and ferrules Cliff Hall Dec. 17, 2004
[http://www.rodbuilding.org/read.php?2,125819,125819#msg-125819]
Peter - whatever you do, do not forget to thread-wrap the outer barrel of both the female end AND the male end (with the spigot) of the ferrule before you start flexing the blank when joined. In fact, there is no reason not to wrap both these barrels before you even find the blank's spine. It is, of course, uncommon for an un-wrapped ferrule to fail under the moderate stressing of static-deflection and test-casting. But you don't want to discover thru carelessness just how common it can be, either ! *** [comments truncated for brevity. See link for all Post & Replies] ... Best Wishes, Gene. -Cliff Hall, Gainesville, FL-

Thanks Tom!

I should have been more clear. They didn't acutally break. One had the female crack from the edge up to just pass where the male would have ended. The other actually cracked along both edges of where the male would have been in the female, producing 2 cracks in the female and bending the piece in between back as to let the male out. On this one the male actually came out of the female end, on the first, you could just hear it crack.

I've done this on many other makes and have never had a problem. Just wanted some validation that when I send them back I'm not going to get the old "well you should not have put any bend even a slight in them without wrapping them"

Thanks
Gene

Look at it this way. You probably got bum blanks. It is good to find out before you build on them, believe me. If the ferrule is thinner on one side it means that they were reamed incorrectly.