interesting thing happened at the shop. First time in my rod building career. A guy brought in a old fenwick which broke about 10 inches from the tip. He wanted it repaired and had all 3 pieces. Interestingly he also had a thin rod he said was in the middle of the tip. I figured the guy just had it laying next to the rod so he thought it was with it. Well on my way home it came to me. It was part of the mandrel and broke off in the tip section during manufacturing and was left there. Anyone ever seen this? Surprised it never broke there sooner.

Bill,
Are you sure that it wasn't there by design?

For fine tipped rods, I have seen sections of small diameter rods inside the tip section to reinforce the tip area.

Be safe

Was this by any chance one of Fenwicks Boron/Graphite rods? The thin rod may be boron and not a mandrel at all. Just a guess.

Don't actually know could have been the design it's a HMG. Poor design if It was as its exactly where it broke?

boron is very tough, but it is fairly brittle. I believe that is why it was combined with graphite. some of the earlier blanks were made by Rodon. They are some of my favorite personal fly rods. I also have a couple of Lamiglas and Fenwick Boron/Graphite rods in both fly and steelhead casting and love them all. Very responsive. I don't know if it was the cost or what that kept them from becoming more popular. If I am not mistaken the Dale Clemens Apogy blanks had a boron, very fine tip that was encased in a very thin layer of graphite. The tip/top was a 3.5 or 4. I still have one.

No, those Fenwicks were all tubular rods. Anything solid inside wasn't supposed to be there.

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Tom, I know the Fenwicks were all tubular, but when broken the boron may have separated from the graphite.

No its is not boron. It is a solid piece of rod that was in the tip section of the blank. Its steel. I really do believe its part of the mandrel. I have boron rods and they great. But boron is in the scrim right Tom? I cant imagine it is a solid metal rod inside the tip. All that would do is create a weak spot at the end to break. And that's exactly where it broke.

It might have been an earlier repair by someone.Factory repair?

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)

Boron is not the scrim.

I would have to say it's the mandrel that stuck inside/broke during the extraction. Pretty weird but guess it could happen. Boron is not the best material for rod blanks. It came or comes as stranded in the carbon prepreg. The problem with boron is it is brittle and during the pattern layup, pattern cutting and rolling it could be damaged easy and also has been stuck in the hands of many workers. Boron is heavy and Boron fiber is much bigger then a carbon fiber also if the boron strand breaks it can cut the carbon fibers that surround it. With the resins made today the use of higher grades of carbon are a better choice to use for stiffening a rod with out gaining the weight.