[Sandy Nelson]

Its Boring BUT I just wanted to share "One of those moments"

I've been squirreled away since before christmas getting to grips with Building Cane rods. Having figured the splitting, heat treating and now the nodal work, i've been planing for the last few days trying to grips with what i perceived to be the trickiest part It finally came together this morning .

The best i was getting a couple of days ago was this, a nice long strip but 10 thou thick



Then i managed to get it down to 4 thou and was struggling to get that bit more accuracy



But this morning after spending ages sharpening my plane the best i could get it i finally got the 1 thousandths of an inch i've been trying to achieve.



It was only a short length but the nice long curl will come Not bad on rough formers

My garage is starting to look like a bamboo shop too, cool



For those who are still vaguely interested, and aren't rolling their eyes, here is where i've got the nodal work too, most acceptable, (the top half are the power fibres, most of the bottom will get planed away)



Now all i have to do is get more practice, getting them into triangles and i think i may soon be ready to start with some basic tapers, I'm finding it a lot easier than i thought

Sandy

[Paul Rankine]

Sandy,
         

I'm finding it a lot easier than i thought

Yes, it looks pretty easy ,  .

 

Paul.

[Mike Barrio]

Awesome

It is great to see how each little piece of your "jigsaw puzzle" has been taking shape over the past while .....

Thanks for posting the photos
Cheers
Mike

[Hamish Young]

Hell of a lot of effort for garden canes 

[Irvine Ross]

Sandy

Forgive me for the daft question, but are you trying to shape the sections with a HAND plane

How do you make sure you are forming the correct angle? I always assumed that there would be some form of a jig to hold the sections while you shape them

Forgive me if I'm spouting rubbish here, but what you have lying on the bench is a block plane which has the blade at a low angle for smoothing end grain. For planing along the grain, I was told it's better to use a smoothing plane which has the blade at a higher angle. But you maybe know more about this than I do.

Hope you manage to escape from the clutches of the cane before the 1st of April

Irvine

[Rob Brownfield]

I see you have some pretty darn good precision instruments there...a mallet! If it dont fit, use the mallet! My school of engineering!..lol

I am in awe by the way! I dabbled with the idea a while back, getting most of my inspiration from a book written by the late great Dick walker. In he he described in great detail how to get the tapers etc and after re-reading several times I decided it would be cheaper and easier to just buy the cane blank from Aggutters 

Good luck with your venture, please do keep us informed!

[Rob Brownfield]

I am sure you have seen these to links..but others might be interested too..

http://www.flyforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31991

http://www.flyforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=30778

[Sandy Nelson]

Sandy

Forgive me for the daft question, but are you trying to shape the sections with a HAND plane

How do you make sure you are forming the correct angle? I always assumed that there would be some form of a jig to hold the sections while you shape them

Forgive me if I'm spouting rubbish here, but what you have lying on the bench is a block plane which has the blade at a low angle for smoothing end grain.

Smart arse

I'm still experimenting with rough planing, i have a Stanley 060 low angle which is OK for roughing the triangles. I'm using a very basic 60' form i made from two strips of wood screwed together, very heath robinson, but lots of fun. Once i get to forming tapers i go onto a stanley 090 a 9 1/2 apparently (I have yet to buy one of these they aren't cheap) so for now the 60 has to do. Still its surprisingly good. I've still quite a way to go before i get to that stage, but If i get the time, hopefully i'll have some glued and bound by the start of the season you never know. I've quite a few scrap helicopter bits for building a binding machine, should be interesting
I have an idea for making tapered formers using hardwood, should be good enough for playing with (its worked fine for the rough ones), I might get our resident machinist at work to make me some steel forms later in the year
and then i can get accurate

Still sneaking tools that cost money is as much fun as sneaking fishing tackle

Better watch thought this could get very boring

Sandy

[Sandy Nelson]

Rob

I've actually been speaking to Tim quite a bit, Nice guy
Makes lovely rods too, he's almost doing it full time now. I cant see how anyone can make a living doing that, its fine as a hobby, but its so time consuming
Getting everything up to the blank stage, that unless you are charging megabucks for a rod, you are only just scraping by.
I'm just lucky i work shifts and can spend the time learning it.

Sandy

[Rob Brownfield]

Rob

I've actually been speaking to Tim quite a bit

I thought you might have been! I am amazed at how many folk are starting to build the blanks as a hobby/bit of cash. I am truely in awe of what you are doing. Although I have an eye for fine detail, I can't work with natural materials. 

[Irvine Ross]

Rob

Thanks for the link to the cane rod building thread. I now have a better idea of how many years it's going to take Sandy to build his first rod. If I had that much time to spare I might manage to go fishing

Irvine

[Sandy Nelson]

Rob

Thanks for the link to the cane rod building thread. I now have a better idea of how many years it's going to take Sandy to build his first rod. If I had that much time to spare I might manage to go fishing

Irvine

 

[Mike Barrio]

Sunday morning TV Sandy?

[Mike Barrio]

Sunday afternoon TV Sandy?

[Rob Brownfield]

Gee whizz..they are even making cane rods in the far east now!!