Stopped by MudHole on the way home from a Florida fishing trip, and on an impulse bought an Orvis Access fly rod blank. Tonight I began preparations for building on the blank, and discovered that the ferrules are not what I expected. The blank is shiny root beer colored, but the male ferrules are gray graphite, and quite long. The gap, which is the bare graphite, between the butt and third section is about an inch long; on other sections a proportional gap exists. Almost looks like a spigot ferrule.

I admit I had not seen one of these rods in the flesh before I bought the blank. Interestingly, the blank already has the "spine" marked on all four sections, as if someone was ready to build on it. Can anyone confirm that the "spigot ferrule" look for the Access blank is right?

From the images I have been able to find, that model does use a spigot ferrule. What MAY have been marked is the straight axis. With spigot ferrules, there needs to be a gap so that over time, and the ferrules wearing, the rod sections still mate properly.

Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

They are actually Tip over Butt ferrules, the male section is actually part of the painted section of the blank. They are correct for that brand and model blank. Several manufacturers use this style of tip over butt on their rods, TFO does this too on several on their models. There is supposed to be a "wear" space so that over time you will not loose the snug fit of each section. It will probably take you a long time to wear them out.

True Spigot Ferruled blanks,typically, the entire length of the blank is rolled on one mandrel, then cut into sections. For each section a seperate piece of ferrule material is slid in from the bottom section of the blank and epoxied in place then it is final fitted into the female section of the next piece of blank, be it a two or more section blank. These ferrules also will have a gap. Winston, Scott, Diamondback, Fisher, and several other companies have used these or still do. Also you will find a lot of the new small custom Fiberglass makers using them.