When wrapping a 4 piece fly rod, you have the female ends which need to be wrapped so the ends wont crack..right? Heres my question, how are you supposed to wrap to the end of the blank without having overhang going into the female end of the blank which might cause the male end not to fit correctly. Is there a mandrill you stick in to the female end, wrap the end and epoxy it then pull the mandrill out? where can I find this mandrill?, or is there another trick? This is the first time I am wrapping a 4 piece fly rod, so any suggestions would be great.

God bless, Ernest

Assemble the rod. Use the male section/s as your "mandrel."

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When I wrap a two piece rod I will start my thread working my way toward the female end adding my tie off loop and pulling my tag when there is about an 1/8 to a 1/16 of an inch left to wrap before falling off the end of the blank.That leaves enough room to epoxy the threads without wicking epoxy into the female end. No need for a mandrill. be sure not to wrap with two much tension or you may compress the female hole.
Hope this helps.

Judd S.

I put a turn of masking tape on the male ends, to protect them, then epoxy all the winding. If any epoxy seeps over the edges, it lands on the tape.

The masking tape works for me as well.

Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

The masking tape is an excellant idea.
If you have a source for blank sections, another way is inserting a piece of one "backwards",
so the thinner OD goes in until it stops will usually leave a gap between the inserted blank "mandrel and the original blank that is being coated.
That should keep any finish from sticking to anything but where it is intended.
It is very important to be sure that none wicks into the female opening also.
If you decide to protect that joint with tape on the male end and then joining the sections so that it cannot be "glued" together by accident,
just be very careful about applying finish.

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

When I do my wraps, I start with the end of the thread well up the rod, and then run down the rod to within about 1/16th or 1/8th of an inch from the end. Then, I continue to wrap up the rod a 1/4 or 3/8th of an inch and tie it off.

I am doing the wrapping with the other piece of rod, inserted into the blank.

When I do my epoxy coating, I take a piece of Wax Paper and wrap it around the smaller piece of blank and insert the wax paper coated blank into the larger piece of blank.

Then, when I apply the finish, I am careful about applying the finish, but if I ever had the misadventure of getting the epoxy down too far, the finish would hit the wax paper and could be easily trimmed off with the two pieces separated.

I have never had to do any trimming, but I like the wax paper to protect the other piece of blank and to keep the two pieces from sticking.

I have used wax paper for many different applications in both rod building as well as model building to keep things from sticking together.

Be safe

When I epoxy i wrap wax paper on the male end

Mot's Custom Rods and Reels