Nodes

Nodes

 Nodes are the rings on culm of bamboo that stick out anywhere from about 12" to 20". These rings must be dealt with in various ways to have a flat piece of cane to work with. A proper node dressing on a cane rod should be small, flat and not sanded through the surrounding power fibers. If not done correctly, you will have a rod that is not only unaesthetic to look at, but a wide variety of other problems. Nodes that are not straightened and pressed correctly can give you a rod that will never be straight. Lots of glue lines in the surrounding area of the node and Coke bottle looking dips in your rod blank. 

Learning to do this properly is something that I really put a lot of time into. It took lots of shop time. Building blank after blank to get things right. 

The next time you look into purchasing a bamboo fly rod, take a look at the node work. You can tell how much time and effort was put into a rod by this.

Color Preserver

Color Preserver

Color preserver brings on a whole different look to silk wraps compared to straight varnish. Instead of the semi translucent to clear wraps, you get the actual color of the the silk. When done right it can look amazing. When done wrong it will make you wish you've never discovered it! If the wraps are not totally sealed off from the varnish which is applied after the CP, you get a hot mess of blotchy looking wraps. Wraps that you will have to remove and redo. It took me a while to figure out a method that works with CP and dipping the rod in varnish. Below is the end result.

This will now be an option on rod builds.