Re 19th century tapers - Ralph Moon

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Paul
I am not the rodlist expert on Greenheart rod, but I have had some doing 
with them when I was curator at the FFF"s IFFC museum and I have made a 
couple. 
First off I do not think that the 18th and 19th century rod builders 
used a lathe as a matter of choice.  That is not to say that none of 
them did, but I rather think that the preferred method was the one I 
used.  I took a billet of wood the size I wanted, say 3/4" square and 
planed the corners down so that I had a billet that was roughly 
octagonal.  Then by drawing the wood through a half round scraper I 
began to round and taper it.  I tried to make scrapers, but I didn't do 
well at it and I ended up using fluting cutters from a Stanley 45 shaper 
plane.  These blades are heavy steel plane blades with a beveled half 
round edge ranging from 1/8' to 1/2".  I placed them in a vise and sawed 
the wood back and forth like a violin bow.  The shafts were then sanded 
and steel wooled, wrapped, a rattan grip put on and ferruled.  Many of 
the older rods were spliced with a long scarf splice, since they were 
used at fixed fishing locations they did not need to be disassembled.  
The length of a spliced rod would make it very cumbersome to transport.  
While many of these rods had  tapered spigot ferrules, I did not feel 
the need and just used some old nickel plated brass  on my rods.  The 
ferrules could be pained if desired.  There is an article on the process 
in Powerfibers a few issues ago. 
Tapers can not be run from hexrod, too many of the natural differences 
in materials and their relationships to make it work.  My first rod I 
made to specs that Ian Kearney gave me.  It was a 10' but so sweet when 
you got some line out. I made a 9' 2 piece rod that a lot of the rod 
listers have cast.  I love to cast it.  I am starting another but I am 
going to the other extreme.  I intend to build a 7' rod.  Compared to 
the 18' Farlow Jeff Hatton has it reminds me of Mutt and Jeff.
Other woods can be used, and since Greenheart is hard to find, I'd 
suggest first that some of the Walnut dowels that you can find at 
woodcraft might work.  There are a lot of little pitfalls you will 
learn.  Grain for example is important in a wood fishing rod.  Sorry 
for  the inordinately long post

Paul Franklyn wrote:

> I'd be interested in reading about how wooden rods were made in the 
> 19th or early 20th century.  I can imagine the lathe for the butt or 
> mid section, but the tip section seems a stretch on a wood lathe.
> Paul 
>
>

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