The Ballan Special - WayneCatt

     When our family goes off fishing there is a Filson pack bag that goes
with us. In it we carry the reels. Collectively we own 9 with a couple more
on the way. They are all made by one person - Bill Ballan. In the collection
there are two that have a fly inprinted on the side plate - they are the
first that Bill ever made. 
     Along with being a reel maker Bill has a fair collection of 'woodies'
and in recent years has asked a few of us to make a special rod for him. The
rod is a 7' 6" 5 weight and 3 weight 3 piece. If you have been on the list
for a while there have been a couple of posts about dual weighted rods.
Personally I am making a 6" 3" 2 - 4 weight with a completion schedule for
Grayrock 97.
     Now a dual lined rod could be called a novelity because it is somewhat
of a compromise of design - the heavier line will be a slower action from the
base design and the light line will be a faster. Understand, for lack of a
better start point the rod taper is an average of the mid and butt section
design tapers. Follow - first I started with a 5 weight rod taper then I ran
a hexrod to create a 3 weight of the same character. Now the tips will be
exactly as design. The butt section is then a straight line average of the
dimensions from 60" to 90".  The mids now need to transend from the given tip
ferrule dimensions to the new second ferrule dimension of the averaged butt
section. The ringer in this is that the base design I used has a hinge in the
midsection which results in a  flare from a straight line so this had to be
averaged as well. The resulting dimensions follow.
     Another little thing - there are 4 tips to the rod so you need at least
24 pieces from  the upper culm and another 18 from the lower part. First I
would recommend using a culm with defects and secondly I would split to more
than 24 pieces from the upper culm - I chose to split to 32. The pattern went
2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32.

The Numbers:
Tip    .063"     .070"
05     .073"     .081"
10     .084"     .092"
15     .104"     .116"
20     .124"     .140"
25     .132"     .150"
30     .141"     .160"
35     .158"     .176"
40     .175"     .192"
45     .192"     .207"
50     .206"     .216"
55     .220"     .225"
60     .234"
65     .244"
70     .255"
75     .266"
80     .277"
85     .277"
90     .277"

Ferrules #9, #11,& #15 (Trunncated)

Wayne

Ps - The reason for the 2 - 4 combo is a 4 for regular fishing and a 2 for
those brookies on the East branch and this 'other' spot.