My brother in law broke his favorite 2 piece spinning rod. - "All I did was set the hook" . He asked me to look at it, and see if I could fix it. It is an old Spiderwire rod. Not a very expensive one, but he likes it.

The break was about 2 inches above the ferrule on the tip end part of the rod. I glued a 1 1/4" fiberglass plug in, at the break, with rod bond. Then I put on a fiberglass oversleeve, and wrapped it with thread So far, so good, I thought..

Apparently the butt piece fits in further into the ferrule than I thought, as now the ferrule will not lock. The upper part of the rod spins when I put the whole rod in the lathe. Not enough friction to lock it down.

I'm thinking that this 2 piece rod will become a 1 piece rod, by rod bonding the sections together,. Am I on the right track here? Has anyone done this?? Anything else that can be done?

One other question - Is there any trick to getting the rod straight when you install a plug. I made this plug as tight to the blank ID as possible, and finished piece is not straight. It turns off center.

Bert Nagy

Bert,
When you repair a two piece rod, near the rod joint, you constantly have to be aware of the mating distance of the two rod halves. It sounds like you either had the break too close to the joint, or you made your plug, just a touch too long.
At this stage of the game, it really sounds like your most expedient solution, would be to mix up a batch of 5 minute epoxy and glue the two rod halves together.

With respect to getting the rod straight, I think that there is a pretty important thing that some folks do not do, when they repair a rod.

Some folks believe that the two broken pieces should be trimmed square, then plugged, glued and over sleeved.

I don't like to use this method. Rather, I prefer to keep the broken ends of the rods ragged, and then when gluing, piece the ragged pieces of rod blank together. The big advantage of this method are two fold:
a. The ragged pieces, when assembled correctly, guarantee that the two broken halves of the break are perfectly aligned.
b. The added gluing area of the ragged ends, really increase the gluing area of the repair and make for a much stronger joint.
c. Finally, the use of the ragged ends, really help to keep the two pieces in perfect alignment.


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Since you have a lathe or power wrapper, a good tip is to use the power wrapper to get the rod perfectly aligned.

In your case, since you were starting with an upper joint, you could put a piece of blank that would fit into the joint in a tight fit. Insert the blank piece into your lathe chuck, insuring that the basic bare blank piece has 0 run out, or has no wobble at all as the chuck is turned. Then, add the rod joint that is being repaired, and make sure that there is still no run out or wobble.

I presume that you already have the rod rests set correctly, so that for the typical rod, you have perfect alignment between the lathe chuck and the rod rests to insure that the rod does not wobble.

Now, when doing the repair, after installing the plug, pop the joint back on the lathe blank, drop the rest of the rod into the rod rests, press the pieces together and squeeze out the excess glue. Now, as you do this, spin the chuck a few times to be sure that there is no bounce on the rod, or wobble as a result of the repair job. Clean up the excess glue, wipe down the joint with alcohol, and double check again to be sure that the joint is still tight. Then, rotate the rod and repair a few more times to be sure that you have 0 run out or a perfectly straight repair, and you should be good to go.

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In your case, you apparently only did in inner sleeve repair on the rod.
I seldom - if ever - do only an inner sleeve repair on the rod. I also do an outer sleeve on the repair as well. So, the combination of the inner and outer sleeve, also does quite a bit to help keep the rod pieces straight.

Take care and stay straight.

Roger

Just a thought, maybe the rod blank itself is warped and Bert did nothing to cause the runout?
In that case, unless it is considerable, because it is an older rod, just fish it.
I have seen many older rods in for repair that for various reasons are warped.
On older rods storing at an angle for long periods of time seems to be one reason, as is storing with the line run thru all the kinds and then left under tension to the tip.
Fibreglass is very prone to this, and I suspect a lot of inexpensive rods that are labeled "Graphite" have a very high glass content

Best wishes,
Ron Schneider
Schneider's Rod Shop
Mountain Home, Arkansas
[www.schneidersrods.com]
mtnron40@yahoo.com
870-424-3381

I would like to know how this one turns out. Please post again after you complete your repair.

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

Bert:

How much too short are you with getting the 2 pieces to go tight? If it is a short distance, just trim the male section of the rod back a little until the 2 sections are tight.

Mike Bradfrod
R.M.B. Fishing Rods
Nampa, Idaho

Many thanks for all the replies. A couple of thing to clarify.

Roger - I did an oversleeve as well as the plug. Also, I did not trim the break. I had done that on my first attempt ever at repairing a break, and had a hard time getting a plug to fit. The little bit that I trimmed off resulted in mismatched size holes

I believe that my problem was probably caused by my assembly process.

I glued the plug into the butt and let, it dry
Then I glued the tip piece onto the plug and let it dry.
Finally I glued the oversleeve. I had just slid it up the tip section

After all that, I wrapped the outersleeve with thread and put thread epoxy on it.

The problem with the butt not locking into the ferrule was because male part hit the plug. The break was close to the ferrule. My plug was 1 1/2 inches - 3 /4 inch on each side of the break. I had read that was the length required. to give a good repair.

Since the ferrule would not lock, I mixed up some rod bond, and glued the two pieces together. They kept sliding apart so I used a rubber band run between the closest guides to the joint. Rod bond dried, and it is now a one piece rod.

The results are pretty good. The rod now has a "hump" from the outer sleeve but I expected that. When you look at the finished rod, I can't tell that it is not perfectly straight.

Lessons learned:

I probably should have glued everything at one time and used the wrapper to support to joint..

Thanks for all the help and insight.

Regards
Bert Nagy

Like Mike suggested you could have trimmed the male end and it should have fit

Bill - willierods.com

Bert,
I think you nailed it. i.e. doing a glue up separately - rather than all at one time.
I like to get all of the pieces of a repaire prefit, and in the right position for quick and easy assembly. Then, I mix up one batch of 5 minutes epoxy, glue up all of the pieces, slipe everything in place and double check to be sure that everything is aligned and straight before the glue starts to set up.

Good repairing.

Roger

Either way. putting the piece on rollers and turning would have let you see if it was turning true.

Bill - willierods.com