[Magnus Angus]

 

Hmmm - I've a couple of "purists"

1 - It was good enough...
Proud and insistent on the history of fly fishing - only uses flies, rods, reels, lines and clothing designed, and preferably manufactured, no later than the Great War (he can't bear calling it WW1 because it was GREAT unlike all the minor skirmishes which came later - has similar feelings about the GREAT depression).
Cane rod - but is considering a greenheart gem he's spotted on ebay.
Brass reel - whoops like a distressed helicopter when a fish runs - which is rare - doubles as a door-stop and hammer in emergency.
Silk line - Circa 1920, inherited from his father, who borrowed it from his father, who wants it back.
Flies - winged and hackled tied on hand made hooks - hard to replace, he's down to two.
Wears - tweed, stout tweed jacket and trousers matched with lighter tweed underwear - heavy, started to smell like a particularly strong goats cheese around 1960.
Leaders - difficult since gut and quality horsehair are in short supply. Currently using the last 2ft of gut he liberated from a tennis racquet.

2 - Camo-man
Fish are highly intelligent, eagle eyed and plotting against him. Everything he owns is camo and matt - rod, reel, line, clothing (including undergarments), bag, car, dog, hair, knife, children, ex-wife. That which is not itself camo lives under an ex army net.

3 - Rip-off-averse-man
Fish are his friends but the tackle trade is plotting against him. He owns nothing costing more than £25. His entire collection of fishing gear cost no more than £100. Gets very defensive when anyone suggests his rod should have more rings (would look better with a cork grip, doesn't actually need roller rings) - that his reel really needs a handle - that his line shouldn't have one flat side.

[Mike Barrio]

Jedi/Magnus ....... very good          

[Rob Brownfield]

Talking of purists, I guess it is important to know where innovations in fishing equipment originally came from.

For example, impregnated cane was developed for the aircraft industry, were they needed a way of preserving and strengthening the frames of biplanes during the "great" war (probably not so great for the meillions killed, wounded or left traumatised!)

The material used in the Orvis Helios was developed for the rotor blades in modern combat helicopters.

Not a lot of difference really, both materials came from a very similar source..so even a cane rod is not that "pure" when it comes to fishing. 

[Magnus Angus]

Rob - no I don't think it's important to know where innovations in fishing tackle derived from - particularly when talking about purists. 

[Hamish Young]

This thread gets better 

Just wish I had a meaningful contribution other than suggesting we start to collect 'real' cork from bottles and have a go at making our own 'custom' handles when flor grade cork becomes unobtainable. I can see a new elitism forming though......

How would that work

Well, for a Sage one might use cork only found in bottles of Pouilly Fuse or Champagne.

For Bruce & Walker perhaps the cork from a robust and workmanlike Merlot would suffice 

For a Daiwa the choice of cork might be from those bottles of Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvginon you've been saving for visits from folk you really don't like 

For a Penn..... well, rubber would do 

I sooooooo need to get out more 

Hamish 

[Sandy Nelson]

Funnily enough i was thinking along similar lines.

If i need 7" of cork for a grip, how many bottles of wine do i need to drink to get enough decent cork.
Only problem i forsee is i believe that only the bottom ring on a champagne cork is wide enough to use, Not that keen on champagne.

Though i did notice that most decent whiskeys have cork stoppers, now THEY , i could collect , just have to put up with skinny handles seems to be the way these days with most manufacturers anyway:roll

Sandy

[Irvine Ross]

Funnily enough i was thinking along similar lines.

If i need 7" of cork for a grip, how many bottles of wine do i need to drink to get enough decent cork.
Only problem i forsee is i believe that only the bottom ring on a champagne cork is wide enough to use, Not that keen on champagne.
Sandy

No no Sandy, use your new found skills. Just adapt your new milling machine. Cut each wine bottle cork into a V shape then build up into an octagonal disc. I calculate that if a wine bottle cork is 20mm in diameter you should be able to build up a 36mm diameter ring from eight corks.

For anyone with the patience to build cane rods, that should be a doddle.

Let's see now, the average wine bottle cork is about 35mm long and you would need 5 corks long to get your 7 inches. 5 x 8 = 40 bottles of wine.

It would have to be good wine though. The cheap stuff has composite corks. Say £20 a bottle at least so your cork handle would cost you £800. Sounds like a good deal to me

Irvine

[Rob Brownfield]

For a Penn..... well, rubber would do 

Dare I say that I can think of one manufacturer where a screw top would be more suitable   heeheehee   

[Magnus Angus]

Sandy

There are natural alternatives which might be less fun but pose less threat to your liver.



That's birch bark, leather can be used to get the same effect something about stacked leather grips in this http://www.powerfibers.com/PowerFibers_Issue_33.pdf

These guys http://www.slatecreekflyrod.com/custom.php use specially turned wooden grips - look great but I'd want to spend some time casting one - fair number of US custom builders offer hardwood grips.

[Hamish Young]

I know Euan (soundmixer  ..... remember him everyone  ) was making knives with stacked leather handles and I recall him mentioning that what he was doing could easily be done to create handles for rods and had been done so before.
The knives he made did feel quite good in the hand, be interesting to try a rod 'in the hand' with a leather handle to see how it would work out 

Magnus - I've seen a lot of the US custom guys offering hardwood grips (ebay is a wonderful place ) but I'm not convinced, surely it would be relatively heavy and if machined from a single piece of wood it would also be fairly inflexible and nullify any 'feel' 
I am intrigued by the idea though.

Now all we need to do is find a forum where a few folk build their own rods to a high standard and find a rod builder to build two rods, one with a blocked leather handle and the other hardwood. If the rods were split cane it might be even more appropriate.
Now I wonder where we should look first

Hamish 

[Rob Brownfield]

Hamish,
I think some of the yanks choose hardwood handles because they infact increase feel. Same principle as "exposed blank" reel seats on lure rods. Any vibration or knocks are transmitted along the blank and through the handle as opposed to the cork soaking up any vibration.

Whether its noticable or not I have no idea, but thats certainly whats been said on the rodbuilding forum.

Another alternative is bark. Have a look at the handles at the bottom of the page. Not my taste but potentially very nice. http://www.solwaycustomcomponents.com/Grip_Material.html

[Irvine Ross]

Hmmm

Wood and leather are both porous and unless impregnated with something, or coated with varnish, will absorb water and expand and then contract again as they dry out. I expect a varnished handle would be slippery when wet. The Irish curraghs (traditional boats) were skinned with leather but it had to be treated with lanolin to keep it waterproof.

Bark is designed to prevent the living tree from losing moisture so it will not absorb much water and therefore should be more stable and should not need any coating with varnish. Birch bark sounds interesting. It;s pretty tough stuff. The North Americans were using it to cover their canoes for centuries. Cork is just a type of oak bark after all.

I wonder what other kind of bark might be suitable

Irvine

[Magnus Angus]

I think some US builders use hardwoods because they can. If they can turn cork they can turn wood, make spacers etc so they have the equipment skills and stock. And because there is a tradition over there of making hardwood rods - hickory and the like.

Holding a grip turned from a hard material maybe increases the vibration reaching the caster's hand. There is a theory that that increases 'feel' - on a fly rod? a carbon fly rod? I'm not convinced - imho it increases 'noise' and in the case of the very few hard grips I've tried, hurts. When talking about casting, "feel" is very poorly defined. Cane rod makers often talk about feel and the superior feel of cane. Given that cane is less hard than carbon - ie it absorbs more vibration than carbon fibre - it seems to me the 'feel' they value is not to do with getting as much vibration as possible through to my poor fragile hand 

I've seen but not used a rod with a birch grip - looked beautiful. In Scandinavia there's a very long tradition of building knife handles from birchbark - the Sami knives I've seen often have sections of antler and bone included in the birch-bark stack. The surfaces of the rod with the birch grip and the knives I've seen were oiled

Irvine
One of the reasons given to me for fitting a cork composite grip to the Platinum Competition rod was that rods are often put away wet and the damp cork then rots. That's certainly my experience, if rods are stuck into damp bags and sealed in tubes, grips break down and begin to swell and crumble. I occasionally see guys fishing with the plastic still on the grip of a rod - good way to get mould forming on the surface of the grip.

Hamish
Weight might be an issue - I suspect not. Almost certainly wood, leather or birch would be heavier than cork, but the added weight is under your hand, exactly where it has least effect on the Moment of Inertia of the rod. Use the same blank but cork vs wood grips and the balance of the rod would be slightly different - it'd be like changing reels - Abel vs Lamson? However, wood is stiffer than cork so it could fractionally change the way the rod bends - especially with deep-action rods I can feel the cork bend on long casts, I would not expect to feel that from a wood grip.

Really like to try one now 

[Mike Barrio]

I've got a greenheart with a solid wood handle somewhere Magnus ..... but I guess you wouldn't be in a great hurry to try that

Interesting thread this

Cheers
Mike

[Rob Brownfield]

Feel...what is feel?

Well, I am a great advocat of cane (for carp) because of the "feel". The reason I believe the rod has more "feeling" is that it bends more on the cast. This bend seems to make the rod come alive and do what it is meant to. I use it because when casting a very light bait such as crust or a float it just makes the whole cast "feel" pleasent.

If I use the same bait/rig on a modern carbon rod of the same test curve it feels lifeless and wont cast as far. Too stiff and unforgiving..yet both rods have an identical (as near as you can get) action and test curve. Infact, my carbon stalking rod cost £395 so was not a cheap option, its on one of the best blanks ever made...whilst my cane carp rod is a Sharpes..middle of the range when it comes to cane carp rods.

Translated into a fly rod, and I have had a few cane rods in the past, its the same thing, a cane rod with a light line, say a 3 weight just lays the line beautifully with no effort, just unrolling the line from the tip. A carbon rod seems to need more line out (or overlining) to get it working, it does not have that lovely "let me do the work for you" kind of feeling...in my opinion that is.

Obviously thats over simplified and there are carbon rods that do have "feeling", but there are a lot that dont.

Its a very personnel thing I guess, but "feeling" from a rod is important..although difficult to explain

[Sandy Nelson]

Feel...what is feel?

Perhaps that should be Who not what 

Its interesting this

Another material used for handles is Rattan, which is a cord bound over a wooden former and then treated with some kind of varnish. Looks might rough on the old hands to me, but was used many moons ago and some are trying to use it again Ah well it takes all sorts.

Rob. Or should i call you Noggin the Egg Nog

I don't really agree about the "feel" being a bendy kind of kind of thing, although you never know
However the rod doing the work for you is another matter, i reckon when they talk about cane this is what most are referring too, and it relates to how the rod will cast a line very smoothly with no obvious vibrations or hardness. That "feels" nice and given casting with cane is usually a laid back affair with time spent on a nice even casting rhythm then i can understand that description.
When they talk about "feel" from a carbon rod then this is also about how it feels in the hand during casting, Again this has much to do with Smoothness and the way a line can be cast without obvious vibrations. It seems though that much of the damping effect of the carbon is built into the Lightnes factor and fast recovery, I figure that due to the stiffness of the material, where Cane absorbs much of the induced vibrations, the carbon tube needs to dissipate them so the faster it does this the less noticeable they are. With less stiff carbons you probably get more vib's therefore less feel up to a point where the carbon  starts to absorb more and starts to feel nice again.

Back to Cork, i quite like the burled barks, i might order a few up and have a play. Thanks for the link

I'm with irvine as regards Leather, it looks ace but i would be very concerned about getting it wet and swelling and drying out and becoming hard, i just think of a chamois and washing my car

Sandy

Now i've opened a can of worms

[Magnus Angus]

Noggin

Feel...what is feel?

I think some of the yanks choose hardwood handles because they infact increase feel. Same principle as "exposed blank" reel seats on lure rods. Any vibration or knocks are transmitted along the blank and through the handle as opposed to the cork soaking up any vibration.

Rob - just as a matter of fact - the material used to make the blank doesn't determine a rods flexibility, ie how deeply a rod bends, nor does it determine the bendform - both are down to the taper. Cane rod designs could mean slow tapers, but equally, many were fast tapers, characteristic of a lot of US made cane dry-fly rods. The difference is that it takes more cane, more weight of material, to equal the stiffness of a carbon rod - for powerful cane rods that means larger diameters and, because most are solid, significantly more mass.

IMHO when we talk about the feel of a fly-rod its about mass in motion, diameters and all sort of things come into play because of air friction - applies to both the rod and line. Casting a light bait using a rod which bends against its own mass makes some sense - using that as a basis for a fly rod? You need to get Sandy to convince you about that.   However none of this has word one to do with wooden handles and transmission of vibration - which is a crock in my opinion.

Sandy
Yeah and that's why you don't wear chamois shoes which is processed to make it absorb water. But shoe-leather? Leather which is processed and treated to make it water resistant - now let me think...

[Irvine Ross]

Sandy
Yeah and that's why you don't wear chamois shoes which is processed to make it absorb water. But shoe-leather? Leather which is processed and treated to make it water resistant - now let me think...

Magnus

Precisely, leather will absorb water unless treated with shoe polish, wax, lanolin, whatever. But the treatment washes out and we have to clart our walking boots with nickwax or some other preparation every time we use them in the wet. Kitchen knives are not made with stacked leather handles because they are repeatedly washed and in time the leather would absorb water and swell then crack when it dries out.

Cork absorbs very little water, hence "float like a cork". It was used as floats on the herring drift nets and kept floating despite repeated prolonged immersion in water. The cells do not interconnect so the water can only penetrate very slowly. It would take about a year of constant immersion at a temperature of 20 C for it to become fully saturated. The cells in wood and leather do interconnect, otherwise the tree or the animal would die, so water can penetrate quite quickly.

But as you point out, if you leave it in damp, oxygenated surroundings then it will get attacked by fungus. Its the fungus that causes the degrade by breaking down the cell walls, not water absorption.

Irvine

[Sandy Nelson]

wooden handles and transmission of vibration - which is a crock in my opinion.

I would think Swelled butts in cane rods add to this, The swell in a cane rod is there to effectively kill the action in the rod before it gets to the grip. It has many other more subtle uses if done in certain ways, but essentially what they are doing is increasing the cross sectional area dramatically in order to stop the bend going down into the grip. To my mind this would be a similar effect to using a wooden handle, So i'm afraid i agree with magnus what can you do

Sandy

Still don't like the idea of a leather grip, i guess my perversions lie elsewhere
I did notice

Yeah and that's why you don't wear chamois shoes which is processed to make it absorb water. But shoe-leather? Leather which is processed and treated to make it water resistant - now let me think...

You talked about shoes not washing cars

[Magnus Angus]

Hi Irvine

As I see it you've described why cork was used on nets and has been replaced with plastics and foam. Fungus is one of the ways cork breaks down on rods - by no means the only factor - fatigue, poor fitting and mechanical damage all take their toll. Leather undoubtedly has negative qualities but since I treat cork with respect and grips tend to last so I'd have no problems treating a leather or birch grip with respect and... you get the idea.

Leather processing (the tanning used) doesn't always wash out - chrome tanned leather is extremely stable and the tan does not wash out. Alum and vegetable tans can wash out, then the leather goes hard when it dries and needs to be either re-lubricated with oils of soaps or by working the leather. Flexible leathers present a problem because the fibres are free to move over one another, that's why the leather can bend - hence water can get inside the matrix of fibres and cause problems. Lanolin, waxes, dubbing and polish are used to proof but they are also used because the leather can bend without cracking - not an issue in a stacked grip.
The leather in a stacked knife grip is hard and we want it that way, the fibres can't flex, in fact anyone making a leather grip works quite hard to make it impossible for them to bend. The slices of leather are compressed and glued together with a proofed edge. Typically glued together with a rubber solution glue - completely insoluble. Water has a very hard time indeed getting into a well made leather stack knife handle.

[Rob Brownfield]

Magnus,
Somewhere on rodbuilding.org there is a very interesting thread on hardwood handles. Some of those builders have made thousands of rods and i listen to them with sum awe as they really speak from experience. When they say they think a hard wood handle increases the feel of what is going on with the rod then who am i to argue. We are not talking about casting here, maybe i did not make that clear, we are talking about knocks and taps on the fly line that transmit along the line to the rod and thus the hand.

Now i do know that the exposed blank style lure/spinning rod handle most definately transmit more knocks to the hand. They do not use tape or arbors to fill the gap, but are bored to the exact size of the blank and are glued directly to it. Unfortuantly, the reason why i sold mine on was because i found the handle bloody uncomfortable   Shame, as the blank was a stunning Daimaru i made up..best lure rod (built on a tournament Bass blank) i have ever owned.

As for the action of the rod..i am familier with the concept of tapers!  ..i was trying to illustrate what i think is a "feel" to a rod....

[Magnus Angus]

Hi Rob

"Sum awe" 

Rob - take a PVC flyline and attach one end to a tree - pull the line tight, tight enough for a trout to come sailing over your head - and continue to pull and the line will continue to stretch. With a few exceptions modern flylines are all like that - very elastic - silk isn't and a few Airflo lines are not. If we want to feel that type of vibration, ie what's happening at the sharp end in detail, we need a mainline with no stretch and it needs to be pulled very tight - like a couple of tin cans linked with a length of string.

With a fly rod and line the only times when the whole system is pulled tight enough to transmit vibration that means much is when casting and when playing a fish - even then the line and rod are still well within their elastic limits - so they still absorb vibration. Carbon fibre is one of those materials which allows very little plastic deformation before catastrophic failure so we can rest assured unless a rod breaks while playing a fish we never reach its elastic limit. Cane can stretch, it allows some plastic defomation before failing - again that damps any vibration which might reach the rod and eventually the anglers hand.

So - if you want a system of fly-rod and fly-line that transmits as much vibration as possible you get the lightest stiffest rod you can find and a non-stretch fly line - you then pull them as tight as possible - once you've done that maybe then it might make sense to have a rigid grip. With a lure or bait rod - again the lightest and stiffest rod you can find and a non stretch line - GSP, Dyneema or some type of braid - again the grip is next to irrelevant if you use a nylon mainline (very elastic) and have a rod which is heavy or floppy (ie which damps vibration) - and then there's the issue of the system being pulled tight.

On the issue of feel - you seemed to me to be arguing that the material not the taper determined how the rod bent.

[Rob Brownfield]

Hi Rob

"Sum awe" 

It was late!!!

You seem to be missing my point entirely...which is...when a fish taps a fly or lure, there is a pull on the rod tip. If it is a stretchy line then yes, some of that "may"be lost due to stretch...BUT...a line will only stretch if there is a lot of weight on one end.

Lay a fly line out straight (one of mikes, not an Airflo floater, it will never lay straight ) and pull one end a foot. I will guarentee you the other end moves a foot. because it wont stretch as there is no weight on it.

Tie on a 6 oz lead and do the same. It will move about 11.5 inches.

Tie on a 5lb lead and it it wont move as all and stretch.

So taps and plucks at a fly or lure will register on the hand, as the line does not stretch much, or else we would never ever be able to use buzzers or nymphs as you are implying the line will stretch and we wont feel a thing. I am not talking about vibration as in a constant "buzz" through the hand..but when that tip is pulled an inch or so, it is transmitted up the blank to the hand. Some of that will be felt in the hand. Having said that...with Recoil rings there is most deffinately a "buzz" when double hauling!.

As for braid....been using that for just over 10 years although when fishing for soft mouthed fish such as Perch I use a very soft rod or nylon as braid pulls lures from a Perch's mouth if fished on a stiff rod.

And as for tapers...I clearly stated I was comparing like for like when it came to actions.  "yet both rods have an identical (as near as you can get) action and test curve." Of course the action comes partly from taper, partly from material, partly from construction techniques.

[Sandy Nelson]

when a fish taps a fly or lure, there is a pull on the rod tip

Stalking or flyfishing, I would see this before I feel it, so its a moot point.

Sandy

[Irvine Ross]

The leather in a stacked knife grip is hard and we want it that way, the fibres can't flex, in fact anyone making a leather grip works quite hard to make it impossible for them to bend. The slices of leather are compressed and glued together with a proofed edge. Typically glued together with a rubber solution glue - completely insoluble. Water has a very hard time indeed getting into a well made leather stack knife handle.

Yes indeed, but the weak point is the proofed edge and the technique hardly utilises the natural properties of the material. For water repellance we are totally dependant on the coating we have applied. Also because of the compression you get more weight and less cushioning effect. You would get the same effect with less bother by making a stacked handle out of discs cut from a conveyor belt. One of my jobs as a student was welding up rollers made of steel pipe and stacked discs from lorry tyres so I'm an expert in this.

Cork comes complete with natural properties that suit it to the job. It is light, comfortable, gives reasonable grip when wet and is naturally water repellant. All we have to do is shape it. No worries about the coating wearing off.

If we want a replacement for cork (and maybe we don't) then it would make sense to start looking at materials that have the properties we want rather than modifying materials that don't.

Incidentally birch timber is light in colour but not light in weight. It's near as heavy as oak. Its disadvantage is it has little natural resistance to fungus so it would have to be well cared for and regularly oiled or varnished. Oak or elm are naturally durable and would put up with more neglect.

OK I will put my anorak away again

Irvine