Is there somewhere we can look up information on a factory built rod? I'm refurbishing a Daiwa Swinger 2646 8½ ft 8wt fly rod for a buddy, and I'd like to have some idea what was done, if possible

What do you mean by "what was done?"

Have you checked with Diawa?

I didn't even know I could do that...
I'm trying to find out if the whole blank was coated with shellac or some other finish.

Most commercially made rods were not coated with anything beyond their paint, which in most instances was a squeegee coated epoxy paint.

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Now that I've got it stripped down as far as I reasonably need to, I've found that there is a metal sleeve underneath the grip and reel seat. The reel seat is serviceable and only needs a bit of cleaning, but the rest of this rod is going to be brand new.

I tried looking on Daiwa's website, but there aren't even any fly rods listed on there. It makes me wonder just how old this thing really is. Google didn't give me any results, either. The blank itself seems like a decent glass blank, so I've got something reasonable to work with.

Thank you for the suggestions and information, fellas :)

Daiwa produced fly rods up through the mid 1980's, many from it's rod plant in California. It was not unusual for many manufacturers, Daiwa included, to build their handles on aluminum or carbon tubes and then glue the rod shafts into those. This allowed them to build handles in one plant and rods in another, and join then as the last step in the manufacturing process.

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That fits the description perfectly. Very interesting, thank you, Tom. I can see why this would have been a common practice for many.

Here's something else to file away for a future repair - When they moved to exposed blank reel seats, Daiwa very used handle sleeves that were painted or patterned to match the rod blank so that when a customer looked at the rod, he wouldn't know the handle and blank were actually two separate pieces glued together. The knock, of course, was that the two-piece construction would be less sensitive than the single piece (highly doubtful) and customers would shun the rods if they knew the handle wasn't actually built and adhered directly to the rod blank itself.

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Seeing the sleeve definitely confirmed my initial suspicion that it wasn't a high end rod lol. But it means something to my buddy, so I'll do what I can to make him happy with it. Thank you for the information, Tom. I really appreciate it!

Please don't think that because a rod is made in two parts that it isn't a "high end" rod. This construction method has been used by many well known companies and often on some of their most expensive rods. Whether the rod you have is one of Daiwa's high end models would have more to do with the materials used to make it.

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