Walter & Group...
I took some of your answers to add to those we've already seen. Much too much material for me to share the entire answer lists from everyone. (We now have 251 members.)
From Gary Davison :
Once in a while I get an answer I hadn't anticipated .... like this one. I think it IS a correct answer ! G. :
7.) Do you know what a TARPON BALL is ?
"Back in the 1930's in Boca Grande, an era when grand people from all over the world visited to fish the Tarpon during the day and attend fancy dinner and dancing parties at night."
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16.) Most fly rods used for Tarpon and other large salt water fish do not have hook keeps. Why ? The size would have to be increased to accommodate the hook for one. Plus it would get in the way of the line singing out with a big Tarpon on the line. Last thing you need on the rod is an item that could catch on the line that is being stripped out off the deck. |
33.) Joan Wulff has designed a cork grip which bears her name. The Winston Company produces it. Can you briefly describe it ?
The grip looks like a slightly modified fishtail grip with less meat in the forward portion of the grip. Obviously smaller diameter and stream line for lady anglers.
This from Winston's site.
JOAN WULFF FAVORITES
Joan Wulff
believes women anglers need lighter rods and smaller grips. Consequently,
she helped design a specialized grip for her favorite trout rods, a
Winston 5-weight WT Series, and also her favorite salmon/steelhead/saltwater
rod, the 9 foot 8-weight BIIX. All of these rods, are extremely
lightweight and a delight to cast. They come equipped with a special
smaller diameter grip which features a thumb grove for proper hand
positioning.
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From Bob Stoufer :
I'd forgotten about WILLOW and HICKORY. Some other woods may have been used as well. G.
Some custom rods were made that way. I don't know of a manufacturer who did that. A couple of the anglers in my fishing club made up some rods in that manner. Then one of the shops in our area started making them up with the first stripper guide at 90 degrees to one side, the next at 60 degrees, the third at 45 degrees and the remainder of the snake guides in the customary alignment.
I believe it was Lefty who told me one problem was that manufacturers who offered rods with offset guides would have had to have right and left models. That could be a marketing problem. G.
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From Dan Davala :
9.) Would you prefer a fly rod with snake guides or one with single foot guides ?
10.) Why ?
Dan.... Reminds me of the single foot little guides with stainless steel frames and ceramic inserts used in lieu of snake guides. They were heavier than snake guides. Sometimes the ceramic insert ring would fall from the frame and end up twirling about on the line between the guides. G.
22.) The REC Company produces Titanium/Nickel guides called RECOIL guides. One advantage of these is that they are very resilient and can be bent right down onto the blank after which they spring back to their original shapes.
a.) Can you think of any other advantage(s) to the use of these guides ?
Yes. I noted the same thing when fishing in Alaska. I also got the impression that they were less likely to ice up than other guides in the first place. We figured that was because they kept flexing as we fished. G.
28.) Some fly rods are made up with stripper guides which stand proud above the rod shaft.
a.) Advantage(s) ?
....Never thought of that. I'm not sure whether this gives better performance, however. G.
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From Tony Loader :
6.) How do fly rod designers decide on guide spacing ? Arrange the guides such that when the rod is bent by line tension, the line enters and leaves each guide at approximately the same angle, indicating an approximately even load on each guide.
A good way to describe it. G.
3.) Some fly rods have a very large diameter ring tip top.
a. Advantage(s) ? Knots, loops and tangles are more easily able to pass through. Said to minimise friction.
b. Disadvantage(s) ? Perceived potential for diminished accuracy.
I wasn't award of an accuracy problem, real or imagined. G.
13.) What was in the center (core) of early Boron fly rods ? Graphite fibre.
Yes. Some of them were made that way. G.
18.) We discussed things you would do to determine if the rod you are about to purchase from the fly shop is the best choice. Lefty Kreh goes one step further. Can you guess what he does ? Beats me.
"I firmly believe the only way to test a rod is to cast the flies deigned to be fished with it." Lefty G.
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From Jim Barr :
9.) Would you prefer a fly rod with snake guides or one with single foot guides ? The rods I build use single foot guides except the stripping guides... less weight to the finished rod primarily from less epoxy but also weight of the guides themselves and thread, and although the rod does not have the "classic" look, I think generally the rod looks "cleaner" with single foot guides.
Jim .... Some pointed out that the single foot guides were heavier than the snake guides. This is true only if you consider the ones of stainless steel frame and ceramic inserts. Even so, your point about having only one foot wrapped and therefore less epoxy is valid since the second foot covered with thread and epoxy adds weight. G.
11.) Joy Dunlop, Al Crise and others made up some fly rods with an extra stripping guide placed a few inches distal to the first stripper. What was the purpose of this ? I think it accomplishes what I do manually by making an "artificial" guide with my line hand with the forefinger and thumb placed below the first stripper and above the cork grip... it helps me "manage" the line by channeling the loose line at my feet or on the water as it is being pulled up toward the rod while casting. I think the danger of having a hard stripper placed below the first normal position of the stripping guide is that sometimes the line can foul around this additional stripper...where if one uses their line hand stripper (as described above) they can place the hand at some distance to the rod and provide a cleaner and more regulated line feed to the first actual stripping guide.
I use the thumb/finger ring, too .... but I don't get it close enough to the first stripper guide to duplicate the effect of the second stripper a few inches above the first one. G.
14.) Some years ago, the Shakespeare Company came out with fiberglass fly rods made by what was called the "Howald process". They were white and had prominent residual spiral blank markings. Do you know what was in the center (core)of these rod blanks ? I believe I may have one of those rods... the first flyrod I ever owned given to me by my dad... it was a Shakespeare "Wonder Rod". The action of the rod is so slow, I have to wait and wait and wait some more for the rod to fully load. I still have it and occasionally use it when fishing "retro" with an old Phleuger reel.... however I have no idea about what is in its core.
I'd forgotten that it was called a WONDER ROD. Thanks for reminding us. G.
16.) Most fly rods used for Tarpon and other large salt water fish do not have hook keeps. Why ? I don't know but I have an aversion to hookkeepers. I don't put them on any of the rods I build. Typically the length of the leader/tippet is longer than the distance from the tip top to the hookkeeper, so that I have to strip out fly line to get the leader out of the tip top... this is wasted time. Instead like most casters I bring the fly around the reel and back up the rod to a guide high up and hook the fly there. Its now out of harms way (my fingers) and there is fly line outside the tip top making it easier and faster to get ready to cast.
I do the same thing. Important to note that it is a bad idea to place the hook around the ring of the guide. The foot support is fine for that. Also, best to bring the fly line around the circlular body of the reel.... NOT around the reel foot. Lastly, you are correct in that most of us prefer to have a little fly line out of the rod tip for several reasons. 1. You don't have to shake out the leader/line connection to start casting. 2. That slight crimp in the fly line where it passes over the tip top ring will smooth out quickly. If you place that crimp in 60 lb. or 50 lb. monofilament butt section, it stays there.
G.
22.) The REC Company produces Titanium/Nickel guides called RECOIL guides. One advantage of these is that they are very resilient and can be bent right down onto the blank after which they spring back to their original shapes.
a.) Can you think of any other advantage(s) to the use of these guides ? When fishing in freezing condtions, its easier to free iced up guides by pressing on the guide breaking the ice. Perhaps when inserting the sections of the rod into a cloth sock or tube if the guides flex, the rod sections are less likely to hang up when storing them. Titanium is extremely light in weight so the cumulative weight of these guides will cause the finished rod to be slightly lighter than using conventional guides.
b.) Some have pointed out a disadvantage. I can think of three. Can you ? Cost is increased as (1) titanium is expensive, and (2) patented design carries add'l overhead cost. Metal fatigue due to repeated bending may be accelerated leading to premature failure.
Lighter, indeed. I weighed a Fuji Stainless steel frame stripper guide with a 22mm ceramic insert and found that it was about the same as the whole range of 10 Ti/Ni (Titanium-Nickel Recoil) guides including one stripper !
I have done quite a bit of research on various Titanium alloys including commercially pure Ti for orthopaedic implants over the years. One problem was fatigue fracture..... but that didn't occur with any greater incidence than with many stainless steel devices UNLESS THERE WAS A SCRATCH ON THE SURFACE ! .... Bottom line is that Titanim alloys can be notch sensitive. I've fished with rods fitted with Ti/Ni guides for years and have never had one fatigue fracture.
When I field tested these guides years ago, knowing about the notch sensitivity of the material, I purposly scratched three of these guides. They have never fractured in use on the rod. This despite the fact that when I scratched some of them on the bench and then subjected them to repeated back and forth bending, they did break.... always at the scratch point. That was the stress risor. G.
33.) Years ago, Jim Green designed a ferrule. I believe he was working with the Fenwick Company at the time. Can you briefly describe it ? Gordy, I didn't know the answer... so admittedly I cheated and Googled "Jim Green and Ferrules" and found this site... here's the link but you're probably way ahead of me on this...
AD: I was wondering if you could
tell me a little about how you came up with the idea for the
Feralite Ferrule?
JG:
Well, You're gonna laugh! One of my jobs at the Woodland Plant was that
I did a lot of ferruling of the blanks. Of course in those days they used metal
ferrules, and working with ferrules like that, well I kind of got tired of
ferruling rods. And they weren't the best things on earth because in time they
would work loose. Not only from the blank, but also just from taking them apart
they would wear. Of course they added weight to the blank also. I just kept
thinking to myself ?there must be some kind of a better way to
ferrule a rod?. One day I was looking at a blank as I recall,
and I wanted to change the butt of it because I felt it was too stiff. So I took
one of the blanks that I had to make this two piece fly rod and I thought, ?well
if I could move the tip further up the blank, why it would be softer of course?.
So for some reason or another I stuck the butt section inside the tip, which
moved the lesser power further up the blank. I was doing it just to try to get
an idea of just what the rod would do. I wanted to cast it because I felt it
would be a better rod, it was just too powerful before. So as I said, I put the
butt section in the tip, then I took it down to one of the girls who was a
wrapper there, and she wrapped it and put a handle on it for me. Then I went out
and fished with it in the Lewis River and I was pleased. The action was good,
the butt had softened up, the rod just felt better. Then it dawned on me, I said
to myself, ?What would be wrong with this being the ferrule on
the rod?. And gosh I was excited! You can't believe how much this saved in time
and effort, to be able to make a blank that you would not have to use metal
ferrules and have problems. If anything wore with the Feralite
Blank, it just slipped in a little further and it always kept tight. And it also
took a lot of the weight out of the blank.
........ And the rest is history ! G.
Way back when we couldn't purchase fly rod blanks with enough beef in the butt section for fighting big game, I used to increase the butt lift strength by slathering a section of rod blank from a broken rod with epoxy and jamming it up into the hollow of the butt section of the rod in question. Made the rod heavy. A crude solution, but one which worked. G.
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From Walter Simberski :
YES !!! These are nano-fibers literally derived from carrots. Note the attachment.
Gordy
Attachment:
Carrot Stix blanks.mht
Description: Binary data