note: (if you could care less about thread art...don't waste your time reading this thread...lol)

This is a topic I find intriguing to say the least. The first book I bought was
Clemens Custom Rodbuilding, the second was Custom Rod Thread Art. I recently gave the first book away to a new builder with building in his blood, but I would never give away my coffee and beer stained copy of CRTA.

Who started this crosswrapping and weaving thing???

The people I've always accepted as being the originators of thread art are the guys that put together CRTA.....BD Ehler, Gil Rowe, Jack Justis, Bob Dietz, George Patric, Liz Pulliam, Randy Ruwe, Ken Weibe,Don Doggett,Fred Bunge,Chuck Bethurum,Vern Frantz, and Virginia C. Creekman. Dale Clemens and Dick French.

During this time I also became familiar with the names "Doc Ski", Cam Clark, and Bernie Cohen.....It was '89 or '90 when rodbuilding caught my eye.

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Tom K. has always spoken highly of Buddy Owens thread art, and has posted some pics of patterns with the dates of '79. Through emails I've come to find out that Buddy Owen has documented"patterns" that date back to 1955!

How much further does it go? BD Ehlers father? Buddys dad? Was Henry David Thoreau wrapping chevrons in a cabin at "Walden" pond?...I'd just like to get an idea of the history of the crosswrap. Any feedback would be appreciated.
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Somebody started thread art....in 100 yrs there's still going to be rodbuilders to build custom rods(your sons,daughters, or grandchildren?) for fisherman that are hopefully fishing in clean water....the futures "Rodbuilding.org/net/flet www" will be discussing "spiral speed wraps", "Polyflorain" arbors by FC, FreeflexMultilex blanks, and of course Madeirbrod OOO 20 in 951 shades of color!!.........and some knucklehead will post......"Thread art History...who started it?


Is there an answer?

Most thread art pre-dates the Clemens book by many years. How many I couldn't say. And keep in mind that most builders in the 70's and 80's were never involved in any sort of rod building organization nor were they students of thread art books or phamplets. Yet, many of them were doing crosswraps and weaves. I suspect this is still the case. During the 1980's, I had occasion to meet dozens and dozens and dozens of rod builders in my shop. With the exception of perhaps 2 or 3, none had ever heard of RodCrafters, and almost none had ever read any book that dealt with rod building. And I still think this is the case today - I meet builders every month from right around here who have never heard of RodMaker Magazine. We tend to look at these websites and magazines and books as being mediums that most astute rod builders are very familar with. But most aren't. We're only dealing with the tip of an iceburg - the vast majority of rod builders are doing their own thing, outside of the limelight of the things most of here are used to.

I've tried to think about the earliest rods I've seen, custom or commercial, that featured some sort of decorative crosswrap. I know I've seen diamonds of one sort or another on older 60's model Garcia rods. After they bought Conolon. I can't recall any on Siliflex though. I know I was seeing some crosswraps on the few custom rods I started seeing and paying attention to in the mid-70's. The early Fenwick blank catalogs, from maybe the late 70's, had instructions for diamond wrapping. That's what I learned from. I worked on my own making up patterns until about '81 or so and then I met a local builder named Chuck Huneycutt. He built custom rods on the old Skyline and Fenwick grey HMG blanks for the local bass fishermen. He did "chicken wrappings" as he called them, on the butt section. These were pretty elaborate and were full closed wraps on multiple axis. I have no idea where he learned from, but other than what I had done and seen in the Fenwick catalog, they were the first decorative crosswraps other than my own I'd come across. Then around '83 his son in law told me about another rod builder nearby named Buddy Owens. I went to visit him and saw a guy who was just light years ahead of the few other builders I had met locally. Bobby Smith in Winston-Salem was doing some crosswrapping in the late 70's and early 80's, but nothing elaborate. Simple diamonds and chevrons. Buddy knew the guys at McKnight Hardware in Greensboro - they built surf rods and put diamond wraps on most of them. I never saw one though, but they had been building them since the mid-60's I think. Larry Tysinger might know something about this. Veque Sprinkle in Winston-Salem had been doing some crosswrapping by the late 70's, but mostly just open diamonds.

I suspect the history of thread art is one of local discovery in just about every area, but if I had to guess, I'd say most of the basic patterns we know of today were around by the 1970's anyway.

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I thought of a few more - Joel Love down in Asheboro was doing crosswraps by the very early 1980's. Don Hanner in Greensboro was doing them by the mid-80's, maybe earlier. I'm pretty sure Mike Bolt didn't pick it up until the mid to late 80's, because I remember building the first handles on his surf rods around 1985 or thereabouts. He was just getting started. There was a guy in Charlotte whose name I forget, "Q-Rods" was his company. He was a pretty fair thread artist from what I can remember. I met him in the early 80's as well.

There were shops on the Outer Banks of NC doing crosswraps of one sort or another in the early 1970's, maybe earlier. I used to see them when I went down there while on vacation during high school. I wasn't building rods yet so it's not something I paid a lot of attention to at that time.

Chuck and Buddy were the earliest I personally knew who were doing multiple-axis closed wraps with real patterns in them. Both were "old pros" by the time I met either of them and both had been wrapping for a decade or more at that time. Buddy was a member of RodCrafters from the first day (1977?) but Chuck never was. I don't think either had a lot of contact with other rod builders. I don't think most builders did at that time. It's been the internet that has really brought everybody into contact. Prior, you really had no way of knowing who was building rods or what anybody else was really doing. I can find out where Buddy learned just by asking. Sadly, Chuck passed away from a heart attack a few years ago.


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"Sadly, Chuck passed away from a heart attack a few years ago"....sorry to hear that, another rodbuilder gone...he probably had a family, some kids maybe, and a life of his own, and some contributions... Kind of part of my point in my question. The guys or gals that started rodbuilding and "Thread Art" in particular, deserve some kind of recognition or exposure for their efforts....before they pass on to the" Big lathe in the sky".......I'm hoping with this thread (no pun) that their efforts don't go unnoticed in the rodbuilding world..

From my personal experience, the first book I ever saw that covered rod thread art at all was Clemens' Fiberglass Rod Making. Prior to this there were several general fishing books that included a chapter on basic rodmaking and repair (Harry Zarchy and Vlad Evanoff come to mind), but these books only covered the basics of how to do a wrap, no artistic stuff at all.

Okay, Buddy comes to the rescue once again. I just got off the phone with him, and he said that Gene Bullard published a small book/booklet in 1972 that had several decorative crosswraps in it along with some guys who were doing some of the patterns. I asked if he still had it, thinking he probably wouldn't, but he does. He's sending it to me tomorrow. I'll see what it actually constitutes and let you know. For all I know, that might be the earliest published work devoted soley to fishing rod thread art. Then again, maybe not. We'll see what else turns up.

Some extra info he included - Vic Cutter wrapped rods at McKnight Hardware in Greensboro in the 1960's. According to Buddy, he did plenty of various crosswraps. He went to work for Gene Bullard in the 1970's and left there to go to work for Fenwick in the late 70's or early 1980's. He's probably the guy who included the Fenwick diamond wrap tutorial in their catalogs for several years.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2005 05:54PM by Tom Kirkman.

Wow.!!..kudos to Vic Cutter at Mcknight Hardware...and Gene Bullard. ( Don't tell me its Gene Bullard of the "Bullard II finish fame?)

Yes. The same guy. I had no idea he had ever published any actual books or pamphlets on rod building. Now I know. I look forward to seeing it. BassMaster Magazine ( I think it was them) did a story on rod building in 1972 '73 or '74, but I'm pretty sure there was nothing on decorative thread wrapping in it. Just instructions for making a custom Eagle Claw worm rod with a Featherweight Handle. That was my indoctrination into rod building.

on another note, somebody in South Carolina was already doing some great thread work in the 1970’s. I’ll try to be as brief as I can - I’ve always found this a bit humorous but hadn't thought about it in a while.

During the very early 1980’s Bobby Smith and I did most of the rod building and repair work for P&M Bait & Tackle in Winston-Salem. One day I came in and Bobby handed me a beautiful rod, obviously custom made, that was broken/smashed in half. He said a college student from Wake Forest had brought it in and was desperate to have it duplicated. Seems he had taken it from his father’s tackle room for a charter trip he and some of his buddies were taking. But his dad hadn’t given him permission to take it, it had cost a ton of money, and the kid had somehow driven a car over it while drunk at the beach. He seemed to indicate that he was going to “really be in for it” if he couldn’t somehow put back an identical rod that his father couldn’t tell from the original. He said he would pay anything for a perfect reproduction. Neither Bobby or Paul (PD New for those “lucky” enough to know him) knew they couldn’t begin to reproduce it but Bobby told him to leave it and he’d ask me. He asked if I’d ever done anything like it before. Well, I hadn’t - this was a very, very, ornate and beautiful custom rod. I counted the trims and tags on the guide wraps and each one had something like 40 of them. The crosswrap was a multi-axis, closed wrap of some pattern I had never seen before or since. Some kind of abstract butterfly thing with extra wraps added in every available spot. I still don’t know who built that rod, but they had a ton of time involved in it. I was impressed.

So I told Bobby that I had never done anything like that but felt sure I could duplicate it. He said it had to be so exact that the guy’s dad would never be able to tell. I said I could do it and we’d even take it out and drag it around the field next door to “dirty” it up a bit so it wouldn’t look so new when it was done. I don’t think any of them thought I could do it, but I figured that one wrap is the same as the next - some just have more threads in them.

The kid (19? 20?) would come by nearly every day to check progress and see if I could meet the deadline. He was bothering me so I stopped working on it while he was there. So he started coming by in the mornings and looking at it when I wasn’t there. He was pretty worried until I got the crosswrap done and then I think he began to feel confident that his dad wouldn’t be able to tell it from the original. I got it done, he took it back and put in his dad’s tackle stash, but came back with his dad, about a month later. Seems his dad had taken it out and noticed that it just looked newer or cleaner somehow. The kid broke down and confessed but his dad didn’t make a big deal out of it after all. He came in and we got to sell him some more custom rods. Worked out well for everybody.

He said that he had bought a set of those rods from a custom builder in SC in the 1970’s. I can’t recall if he told me the name of the guy or not. If he did, I’ve forgotten it. But it was purchased from somebody in SC and it was one heck of a nice rod with one heck of an elaborate crosswrap on the butt. At the time, it was the most elaborate that I’d ever seen. I think it would still turn heads today, unless my memory fails me.

This was a bad thread/topic to start - it’s got me nostalgic over old rod building days.


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You know, Wayne Fowlkes up in VA Beach has been doing this sort of stuff for many years too. I'm positive he has plenty of original patterns and could tell some good stories. His wraps have graced the covers of Gudebrod's catalog for many years and I understand that is work will be on the cover of Cabela's Tackle Craft catalog next year.

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"This was a bad thread/topic to start-its got me nostalgic over old rodbuilding days".........................................................................................exacltly!!!!

Brings me to the point of nostalgia......... a student at Harvard wanted me to put finish on two rods he made, the threadwork was phenomenal....."PHENOMENAL" but he sucked at finish. His thread art was amazing IMO.....he's probablly a lawyer now!

"Nostalgia" will help with the answer to my question.

Well, I guess we are all about the same age, and get nostalgic about the same time period. I first saw custom rods in the Atlanta area (Roswell, actually) about 1968 or 1989. There was an older gentleman named Cal Parker who owned a business called Parker's Tackle Repair. He was retired from the phone company, and had a little shop. I was a teenager, but got to know him very well. He wrote a fishing column for the local newspaper, and put my picture in when I caught a big snapper in Florida.
He made some nice rods! I didn't pay much attention to the fancy wraps, but he was doing them. He actually wanted to take me under his wing and teach me the business, and sell it to me, but I didn't want to do this. Wish I had done this - I would have been 35 years ahead!
A few years ago I ran into his son and grandson at the old Fisherama in Atlanta. They said Cal was not doing any rodbuilding anymore, but they still had the custom business.
Steve Broadwell

Guys, this is very interesting. And Tom, I think you should do a write up in Rodmaker on the "history of thread art." What do you guys think?

Love to see that article!!

Mike

Anyone know someone by the name of HOGMAN?? HE made a post back in May of 2004 on teh Visualwrap site where he says he helped Vic Cutter with the Fenwick thread wrapping Pamplet, I think his first name may be LArry? HE made a post oon one of the defunct sites which gave me a toungue lashing abotu teh great Thread Artists & etc over a year ago, but I cannot find it.

Such a history would be hard to come up with. Too much water under the pier by now. They have been doing decorative wraps on saltwater rods here in Florida since the 50's. I started seeing some pretty fancy wraps by the 60's when I started fishing. I think if you look around and talk to the old timers you'll see that thread wrapping got started in the coastal tackle shops both east and west coast. Big rods, plenty of room to do wraps. competition between the shops and that sort of thing.

One thing that I found sort of odd, is that in the Clemens book CRTA as you guys call it, he says in the introduction that most shops selling rods with and without fancy threadwork found that most customers would choose the ones with the fancy threadwork nearly every time. Odd. I've never found many people who wanted the fancy thread art once they found out what it cost. Most liked it, but they wouldn't pay for it. Now if you gave it to them they'd take it. But pay for it? No way.

There was a guy named Ken somebody who worked with Vic at the hardware store. They built mostly long 1 piece surf rods. They were the world's greatest rod builders. And they were happy to tell you so. Vic still works for Fenwick or is it "Pure Fishing" now?

What about Tatum and MIss Kitty in Nag's Head? Plenty of old time rod builders up and down the Virginia and North Carolina coasts.

As far as my writing an article on the history of custom thread wrapping - I couldn’t do it, precisely because I don’t know it. I could probably dig a bit and find out who did what and when in this particular area, but even then I doubt I could go back more than the 1960’s. There was plenty of rod building going on in the rest of the Country (and even around the world) both then and before. If you can find the first time that somebody put a diamond wrap on a fishing rod and then work forward, you might be off and running. But I think you’d have a hard time finding that initial use of a crosswrap on a rod or exactly what has transpired since. Too much has been done, by too many people, over too many years.

No doubt it’d be interesting, but I think it would be downright difficult if not impossible to write any sort of accurate or definitive history on custom rod thread art.

.........

George Herter wrote a book on rodbuilding in 1958 (http://cgi.@#$%&.com/George-L-Herter-Fishing-ROD-BUILDING-MANUAL-Guide_W0QQitemZ4564997885QQcategoryZ378QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem). I've never seen the book but I would think it's a good place to look.

I have a copy. I'll have to look again, but I don't recall any crosswrapping info in it.

Boyd Pheiffer's book, TackleCrafting, the original done in the 70's, does have some diamond wrap info in it, I think. I'll have to look.

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Wonderful Thread !!
I wish I had more to add here. I saw my first custom rod the mid 80's. It was a med/heavy salt water live bait rod.
All of the custom rods I saw were salt water rods with single or double diamond wraps and I thought they very cool!
I saw Dale's book "Advanced Custom Rod Building" (volume 1) in 1987 and bought it on the spot!
At that time all the rods I and others built had "California Style" cork-tape handles without a reel seat. I ALWAYS
did a diamond wrap before even thought about the guides as most people then based the quality of the rod by the
BUTT WRAP! The thread art it what inspired me to get started in building rods. About the same time I got both of the
Flex-Coat cross-wrap booklets which had the fish, flag, maze, & checker patterns. Those were the only patterns I
saw in print until I bought Dale's CRTA.
I have a custom carved cherrywood pistol grip that is supposed to have been presented to Dale Clemens by the president
of Fuji sometime in the 80's. When I got this handle I got the idea to build a "tribute rod" to celebrate the old masters.
The rod is still in the idea stage. If possible I would like to first verify if the handle is really what I was told it was.
I'm thinking I would like to do a buttwrapp originaly designed by ? ( Dale or someone else of the same period) and
a guidewrapp originally designed by ? ( another old master ) on a blank also from the same time period using of
course the presentation handle from Fuji.
Until I found this forum I had never heard of Tom Kirkman, Doc Ski, Emory Harry, Mr. Tanaka and others. All I knew of rod
builders were of course Dale Clemens and those he mentioned and gave credit to in his books.

If anyone could help me with ANY ideas or "original patterns" or could authenticate the pistol grip or would like to contribute
in any way to my "tribute Rod" project I would very much appreciate it" Please email or call me!

916-422-5531

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..