Bell Guides.

[Normslanding]

Hi, I have posted this on Bloody Decks, and also sent a message to Randy Pauly about Bell Guides. I am posting here in hopes of finding some of these guides.
Below is my post on BD's. THANKS.

HELP! I have several Calcutta (bamboo), and glass rods to restore. I am looking for about 25 Bell guides. Mostly in the 11,10,9, and 8 size. I will gladly take nickle or chrome finish guides. This is a labor of love. If you have ever re-wraped a eleven foot Calcutta with a Major set in it you know what I mean. No machine all hand work.
Any help is appreciated.

[oc1]

What are bell guides?  Like these?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Fishing-Rod-Guides-/292019230004?hash=item43fdb3d534:g:FY8AAOSwjDZYlccS

Yeah, a lathe doesn't do much good when wrapping cane.  I use a 4-thread soft laid Irish linen that is traditional, much thicker, more forgiving and quicker than modern wrapping thread.
-steve

[Swami805]

Try posting something on rodbuilding.org. Nice bunch of fellas on there similar to this site but for rod building.No B* either like on BD. Sheridan

[Normslanding]

BD's got no response. I will try the other.  Thanks.

[Reel 224]

You can visit this site and blog for your information also  http://www.rodmakermagazine.com

Joe

[oc1]

If would take some better tooling to do this correctly.
-steve

[Reel 224]

Nice work Steve.

Joe

[Benni3]

Now that's cool 

[Alto Mare]

To me, looks like you did a pretty good job.

[droppedit]

Going to have to try that for my missing guide. Thanks, great job!


Dave

[Normslanding]

Thanks for the input. I have done about the same. But my results have been inconsistent. The flare in my prototypes just caused me a lot of grief. Also refining the technique and making several sizes has frustrated me. I am in the process of using tubing and a flaring tool, the base of the guides will be silver soldered to the tube. I am looking into refinishing (Nickle Plating) existing guides, as well as fab'ed guides. I did find three Bell guides on ebay. I am still playing around with fabrication, but keeping my options open. Again thanks for the help, and I will keep my eye on this post. Sorry I have not responded sooner. Some times life gets in the way of this important stuff.

[oc1]

You need to keep annelling to make the flare.  That's the most difficult part.  If you look at a lot of vintage ones you will see it was the most difficult part for them too. It is not uncommon to see ones where the end of the seam is split open at the flare.  That little notch is an accident waiting to happen

In my opinion it was not a very good design to begin with.  They do not get the line up off of the rod.  A ring guide is more versatile, easier and faster to make, produces less scrap material, and weighs less (with comparable ring sizes).
-steve