I am building a 7'6" 3wt fiberglass fly rod that has spigot ferrules. I have found a lot of mixed reviews on reinforcing wraps on the blank at the ferrules. Does the female end need reinforcement and if so how long should it be? (The entire length of the male portion?) Does the male end need reinforcement and how long should that be as well? On this blank the spigot is approximately 2.5 inches total and it sticks out about 1.25 inches. Seems like a lot of extra wrapping (ie weight and stiffness) at two points along the blank.

The ones I have done and they have all survived, are about 1/4 to 3/8 inches long, largest near butt, make the wraps as close to the edges as you can get them. Failures start here most times.

I wrap the female end approx. 3/8" Never saw a need on the male portion.

Are you saying that the exposed spigot is 1 1/4" after mating the sections? If so that is quite large, have not seen that much before.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2022 12:33PM by Phil Erickson.

Thank you both. On a tip-over type I usually wrap/reinforce the female end anyway mostly because I like the way it looks. I had read that the female side of a spigot needed to be reinforced for the entire length of the spigot which seems excessive. I think I will shoot for my standard 3/8"-1/2" inch or so wrap and stop it as close to the end as I can and still allow for thread finish.

Phil, the entire portion of the spigot sticking out of the blank (the male piece) is about 1 1/4". After the rod is joined the gap between blank pieces is about 5/16" which I am ok with.

The blank manufacturer can tell you if both sides need reinforced and how much.

Adam,
The debate will continue if the female side of a spigot or TOB ferrule requires thread reinforcement or not. Some builders say yes, others no; some blank manufactures say yes, others no. One has more to gain than lose. With the weight penalty being rather insignificant, I feel it is good insurance to avoid blank split-out and it is immediately obvious that extra care was taken by the builder. The length opinions of the reinforcement vary as well; .1/4in, .3/8in, 1.5 X the diameter of the blank. Although a small amount, it IS adding weight, so I wrap 15 rotations of size A thread (=< 3/16in) which equates to ~ 30lb of retaining force; I am confident that is enough.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Adam

Ferrule reinforcement wraps add essentially no additional "stiffness". They do add weight but the trade off is small fractions of an ounce in weight vs a potential blank failure.

I've built more than a few glass rods with spigot ferrules, have made their reinforcing wrap lengths equal to 1.5 times the OD of the female ferrule, have also reinforced the male side, and never had a ferrule failure. Might not have had any failures if I had omitted all the reinforcement wraps. I'll never know. What I do know is I feel good about all those rods, glass and carbon, with reinforcing wraps.

To further justify employing ferrule reinforcement wraps, consider the “weave” pattern of virtually all rods, be they CF, FG or even natural bamboo. As much as 95% of the fibers are unidirectional along the axis of the blank to achieve the greatest amount of stiffness for the least amount of weight. This leaves a minimum of fibers encircling the blank to afford the required hoop strength to hold everything together. While that may be all fine-and-dandy at any given point along a single-piece blank because the uni fibers are running through that point, as soon as the blank is cut, there is now only HALF the number of fibers for support at that point simply because there are no fibers, now, past that point. With the inherently minimal amount of hoop strength to begin with, combined with halving that strength due to the cut, reinforcement wraps for spigot or TOB ferrules seem like a no-brainer to me. A little extra time + minimal extra weight = security and peace-of-mind. Can one get-by without them? One will never know until the blank splits-out = your choice.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

On a spigot (plug) ferrule, unless the manufacturer has indicated that reinforcement wraps are not needed, I'd put a short, perhaps 3/8th inch long wrap on the male portion where the spigot is installed, and another 3/8th inch wrap at the edge of the female opening. The length isn't necessarily critical. 1/4 to 1/2 inch would be as good if you get them close to the edge. I'm just tossing out a number for general reference and 3/8th is enough to do the job without going overboard with a lot of additional length that isn't required.

.............

I see lots of ferrule wraps on tip over butt types that are not very close to the edge which is baffling to me because while it might prevent complete failure it may not stop the initial split right at the edge which is the one thing you most want to prevent .

My short answer is YES to wrapping both the male and female side of a spigot ferrule. My rule of thumb is 1.5x the diameter = the wrap length is the standard convention that I follow. Any negatives added to your build in way of weight or stiffness a couple of wraps of thread and finish add at a spigot joint, to me, has always been a laughable consideration but hey, UMMV. The perception of an additional level of protection alone was/is always well worth it but I do believe there's actual strength added by the effort anyway.

One decision point for you to consider is whether you want to start the female wrap 1/8" to 3/16" above the end of the blank. You'll see many classic glass factory rods like Hardy's and others built like this so the owner has some margin to carefully sand away a little length once the ferrule gap closes up after use and not get into the wraps themselves. I personally don't do this since there are other methods out there to add gap (i.e. bees wax first followed by a urethane dip of the male spigot, thin coat of epoxy sanded, etc.) but some builders still adhere to that method.

BTW, I know you're asking about the male end of a spigot but the only ferrule I ever cracked was the unwrapped female side of a tip over ferrule while I was fitting up sections during a build (that sucked). High quality, expensive domestically-rolled S-glass blank. I fixed it pretty easily by incorporating metal ferrule rings in all locations before finishing but there was a lesson there - I was really surprised at how easily it cracked. I now wrap ferrules (crapily but still) before I do my static guide checks and replace them with more careful wraps when I'm wrapping the guides.

Good luck.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2022 07:32PM by Jeffrey Merlino.