I've heard it suggested that one way to get into bamboo rods inexpensively is to buy one of the lesser vintage rods, such as a Montague or H-I, and strip it back down to a blank, and rebuild it. Has anyone here ever tried it? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Wayne Chubb

Some of them old 3 peice 9' rods are reel dogs and not much fun. I have playing with making some banty rods out of the tip and mid sections and have come up with some realy nice 6' 3 and 4 wt rods that are alot of fun to fish. Most have been H + I as they seem to come to me here in upstase NY.

I rebuild alot of the old Japanese,H-I,and Sheakspear bamboo rods.Get them at @#$%& and local flea markets.Dont pay much over $30.00 for them though.Some times it takes the parts of two or three rods to make one good rod.Like Bob said,"some are real dogs".All I've done came out nice and the refinished bamboo is beautiful.I use a knife and/or sandpaper to scrap off the old varnish.It comes off fairly easy.Rebuild with new stuff(I use silk thread on bamboo). Color preserve and coat the whole thing with U-40 Perma Gloss,the one part kind you dont have to mix,it's made for high flex and bamboo.When your done,you'll have a 40 to 80 year old rod like new.
You'll pay more for H-I ,Shakspear,Winston,and EagleClaw+Orvis have an inpregnated bamboo thats high dollar.I dont know what they inpregnate it with,for the price ,it must be gold.

I do it on a daily basis.. any questions, feel free to emai me privately.

Tight lines & smokin' drags

Art

Wayne;
Old cheap rods are cheap now for the same reasons they were cheap when new, namely, they are poorly made clubs. Sure, they'll flop the line out in front of you somewhere, but that's about all you can say for them. If you want to wind up with a nice rod to fish that is worth the effort to finish it out, then buy at least on of the better production rods, such as Heddon, Edwards, Phiilipson or Granger or , better yet, buy a new blank from one of the many modern makers. JMHO
john