I've heard of various suggestions about wrapping the ferrule, on being that the wrap should be as long as twice the inside diameter. Someone else told me he wraps the entire length of the female side plus one inch, and then over wraps the ferrule end. On a two piece 11'6" surf rod, what will be secure without being overkill? I never heard of wrapping the entire ferrule. If I use a color approximating the blank color, and do it in size A regular thread using no CP, will it be enough support, while being largely invisible?

One other question, I'd like to do some test casting before I place the seat, grips, etc., yet I want to be sure I can still slide these components down the blank afterwards. What is the best way to support the ferrule sufficiently for these tests, and still not present a problem for passing the grips over it?

Most good ferrules are internally reinforced and really don't need any additional reinforcement. However, most of us continue to do it anyway, and it's that female ferrule edge that we want to prevent from a split-out. So no matter how long you make it, it's the first little bit that counts the most.

Until I starting telling people that I generally wrap mine a distance equal to twice the diameter at the ferrule opening, I had never seen anyone else recommend that formula or anything like it. I tell you this so you'll know that it's somewhat arbitrary in nature - I chose it for consistency more than anything else. In most cases it's enough to do what the wrap is intended to do. So any more is overkill. But as far as the optimum length, I can't tell you. It's quite possible you could go shorter and still be fine.

When in doubt, ask the manufacturer. Or look at the finished rods by that same manufacturer and see how long their ferrule wraps are.

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Rich,
On our most of our production rods we keep the ferrule wraps at about 1/2". I haven't seen any failure due to the ferrule splitting in many years. On the rods I build personally the wraps never exceed 1/4" with many narrower on small fly or spinning rods.
Also, if you are putting the wrap on the female side of the ferrule there should be no obstruction putting on the cork or reel seat as you should have the section with the wrap off when assembling.

Todd

Thanks for your answers, Tom and Todd. As it is a Rainshadow blank, I just spoke to Kerry at Batson, and like you said, Tom, they add a flag to the ferrule area to support it internally, Kerry said that technically, you don't even need to wrap it, but it's a good idea to do it just to protect the female side from getting banged up when the rod is in the disassembled state. I feel an awful lot better having heard it from the source.

Rich

Ferrule wraps = another place to prominently display thread art