I have a friend whose Legend Ultra Fly rod became slightly loose at the ferrule while he was casting. He had just made a forward cast when the rod broke. The rod broke at the male portion right near the tip. The tip section of the rod still looks intact, but he is afraid that the stress of the break damaged the female ferrule also. Is there any good way to find out if/where the tip section is damaged? If it is damaged, is there any way to repair it? Or, is the best bet a completely new tip section or completely new rod? He has already acquired a new butt section. And, the new butt section seems to have a good, tight fit with the old tip section.

About all he can do is a close inspection of the female ferrule, looking for any tell-tale cracks or hairline splits. For piece of mind he might remove the reinforcment wrap, inspect, and replace.

If he has a nice snug fit, it is very likely that the female ferrule is in good shape.

Make sure he understands the proper way to connect multi-piece rods (bring together with guides offset 90 degress until just snug, then twist into aligment with moderate force). He might also put a coat of U-40 Ferrule Lube on it. That stuff not only makes joining and disjoining easier, but seems to hold ferrules tight when they are supposed to be tight.

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This same thing happened to my favorite 3 wt Diamonback last month. I couldn't find any damage on the female end so I just cut of the damaged male ferrule tip with a Drememl bit, inserted a new cork plug, and then to make sure I repaired any hairline craks in it I applied a thin coat of gap filling ACC. After that dried I lightly sanded the ACC and it fit perfect. I used it on 2 trips since then without any problems. This was the first rod I ever made so wanted to fix it instead of sending it back. When I described this to the repair guys at Diamonback they said it was a good as anything they would have done, and if it doesn't work just send in the broken sections for a free replacement--FlyDoctor