A good friend had broken the tip of his favorite 7' crappie rod between the 2nd and third guides. The blank is an old one-piece fly rod blank and is at most 3/32" at that point.

I couldn't find a ferrule that small so I inserted an epoxy-coated 3" "toothpick" of solid fiberglass in the hollow center of the blank, centered between the two broken pieces then slid them together. After the epoxy set, I tightly wrapped a single layer of "E" weight thread over the joint extending it about 3/4" on either side of the break. Finally, I put on a good coat of epoxy over the threads, making sure to work it in well, essentially trying to create the equivalent of a plaster cast like those used for broken bones.

I got an email today saying the repair did not hold up. This is a custom rod made years ago and it is very special to this individual so I'd like to give it another try.

Knowing that I'm going to significantly affect the tip action of the rod, I'm planning to apply a metal "splint" to bridge the gap then once again over-wrap with thread and epoxy.

Is there another, better technique for joining the two parts of a pretty thin tip section or is old Betsy beyond hope?

Read the library article by Ralph O'Quinn on repairs. You'll find the answer to your question there, but you'll need to prepare a sleeve over the break as well as a plug in the blank. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully regarding length of the plug vs the sleeve and sand/bevel the edges as described. You should be able to make an effective repair using these instructions.

Terry

Forget the metal strap. Your repair was doomed from the start as it did not allow any continuation of properties in the materials involved. An oversleeve of glass was the answer.

You can't introduce something that will completely imobilize or overly stiffen an area that is designed to flex and expect it to hold up. One of two things is going to happen - either the splice/splint/"cast" wil fail or the rod will fail at one edge of the splint. Your splice or splint, or whatever you want to call it, must flex with the rod and maintain a continuation of what is already there.

Do as Terry says and read the repair article in the library here. You can fix this rod good as new but will have to use a better approach.


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Skip, do as Tom and Terry suggests. The short answer to any such repair, whether it is an internal spigot, or oversleeve, is to use a section of rod that is lower modulus not higher, so it actually flexes slightly more than the two pieces it is repairing. I've repaired lots of fly rod tips and not one has failed from following that principle. Other than that, get a close fit and only bind enough to prevent each end of the repair splitting. The only other thing I'd suggest is to find a really thin laminating type epoxy glue and use sparingly. Good Luck, Jim.