Calcutta Wooden Rods

[Penn Chronology]

Mike, I have read of big game split cane rods made of three 6-piece concentric layers for a total of 18 pieces of cane each. The claim was that were very light and strong.

Sid, you are correct; but, over simplifying. Big game cane rods were made three different ways. The 18 layers you are talking about are called "Triple Built" rods. Very strong, expensive and high quality. The more affordable big game rods were "Single Built" with only six pieces. There were also ""Double built rods that uses 12 pieces of cane to create the hexagon shape. Basically, the single, double and triple built categories were describing the amount of laminations used in the bamboo to create the rod sections.

[oc1]

The usable thickness of the wall on a bamboo culm limits how thick and strong a split bamboo rod can be.  To make the rod diameter larger, there had to either be a void in the center or the rod had to be double or triple built.

Whole cane rods were a different story.  There were some massive single piece whole cane rods with 16/0 size reels mounted on them.  Then there's hickory too.
-steve

[Tiddlerbasher]

Hardy Bros, in England, came up with a slightly different way of making 'split' or built cane rods stronger - they built the cane hexagon around a steel (might be piano wire ) core.
It was called 'Palakona'. The one I have is an 8ft Coquet Boat Rod - which would have probably been used for fishing in the North Sea. Cosmetically mine is very poor but restorable.
Still looking for a replacement screw in rubber butt. The action is similar to a 50lb class rod. Very stiff and still straight. There is some smoke and damp damage (maybe a house fire?)
I stripped it a while back - just never got around to restoring it