I've just purchased a TFO 8 wt blank for my first fly rod attempt. The blank is a beautiful 4 piece blue blank. the male ends are painted grey in color. When I put the sections together a small portion of the grey male end shows, a little less then a 1/2 inch. My questions is should this portion of the male end that is showing be wrapped with thread like the female end.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Mike Clements

Leave that area open - it's needed to allow for eventual wear. It's not paint - it's uncoated, natural graphite.

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I believe that is also called a Spigot Ferrule.

Leave it be, that is a spigot ferrule, used on TFOs better rods. Don't do what I saw done once by a novice who didn't know any better and ruined a $300+ Winston Trout blank....he filed and sanded the male ends until they fit snug against the female ends! As Tom said, it it there to allow for wear, altough it would take YEARS of occasional use to wear the ferrule that much, unless you are in the bad habit of dragging the male end in the dirt prior to assembly. Funny thing is that Winston claims it is much easier to design a multi-piece blank to flex correctly using spigots rather than fit over ferrules. Personally, I like them.

Spigots are less expensive from a design and manufacturing standpoint. But there's nothing wrong with them.

I wanted to mention that if you do have a spigot ferrule, you may wish to thread wrap both ends of the sections, the junction of the section that contains the spigot/plug as well as the section that accepts it. Make these wraps near to the edges and very snug.

Sometimes this isn't necessary as many rods these days are internally reinforced at the ferrule area. You can always take a look at a factory TFO rod to see what the manufacturer does in that regard.

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I built a fly rod recently on one of the TFO blanks and was a little unsure as to how to handle the "gray" sections. When I built the rod I left the section on the male side unwrapped. The rod looked somewhat unfinished with the sections of gray showing. Later I saw two factory rods (Bass Pro Shop) on the same blank and the upper sections were wrapped down to within about 1/8" of the female part of the ferrule. I got the rod and added the wrap to each section. The rod looks much better (finished).

Bill

Actually the TFO joints are not true spigots at all. They use conventional tip over butt joints, but leave the tip of the butt section a light grey - I assume because any joint will eventually lose most or all of its colour on the internal section from wear anyway, so they figure it will look better in time. The male end of the joint does not need reinforcing (unlike a true spigot, where the male joint 'emerges' from the lower section of the blank and therefore the lower tube needs reinforcing at that point to prevent splitting), but I guess the TFO male joint could be bound for cosmetic purposes if you prefer the look. Just make sure you leave enough space for the joint to 'seat' a little further with wear. I notice that some of the newer Orvis blanks are also being made with the 'spigot' look and the male sections are being bound by the factory (also for cosmetic purposes I assume). If you compare the TFO joints to say Dan's Sig V joints, they are not dissimilar, but Dan's male ends are a natural graphite dark grey and blend in with the blank, while the TFO ends are light grey (painted?) and stand out from the colour of the blank. Jim

I made up one of these (TFO) blanks and did not like the look of the painted section so I scrubbed it off with a scotchbrite pad. It came off really easy (looks much better).
I have not fished it much but the sections seem to seat down OK. Have I caused an irreparable problem for the future??
Thanks, Greg

Doubtful. If you're careful not to change the taper in the area then the only thing likely to happen is that the female end will seat deeper on the male end by just a tad.

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