Removing tip-top guide on old steel rod / Some casting too

[Paul Roberts]

Anyone ever removed the tip-top guide on an old tubular steel rod?. No hot glue here. Perhaps it is brazed and must be torched off? This would likely damage the vinyl coat, the end wrap, and even retemper the tip of the blank. Thoughts?

[Crow]

I'm guessing it is probably soldered on, rather than brazed.....the manufacturer wouldn't have wanted the loss of temper, or the added expense of brazing...and if the guide is brass...solder would have been the easiest way of attachment......."brazing" brass is a tricky deal.
but, that's just what I *think*!

[OhReely]

Without knowing what it looks like I'll offer this suggestion. Clean and reduce the existing guide enough to slip a new guide over it. Epoxy it in place.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Without knowing what it looks like I'll offer this suggestion. Clean and reduce the existing guide enough to slip a new guide over it. Epoxy it in place.

I think he's onto something. Sand or grind it down as far as possible and put a new tip over it. Or accept a rod that's a half inch shorter. That's usually what I do.

[Reeltyme]

Paul, I have used my trusty Dremel with a thin cutting wheel to cut through the length of the tip and "peel" the old tip off. It takes a steady hand but it works for me. Good luck!

[cbar45]

I have used a Dremel cutting through the tip-top tube in a loose spiral.

Finesse and patience and some breaks in between.

[Paul Roberts]

Awesome idea! I hadn't thought of that. That's what I'll do! I'll try to peel, or grind it off or down. 🤞🏼

[Paul Roberts]

First, I'll follow Donny's thought about solder and see if I can use just enough heat to soften the solder. If not, I'll grind it down.

[Paul Roberts]

As Donny, and Bill Sonnett, suggested, it's soldered. Easy peasy!

[Brewcrafter]

Great news! - john

[cbar45]

Glad it worked out for you.

[Midway Tommy]

I've got a really old steel casting rod with agate guides that my dad & Gpa fished with and all of the guides are soldered on, no thread wrapping on it at all.

[Paul Roberts]

I've got one of those too, Tom. Mine is a tubular steel "Armax" -probably a Horton made trade rod(?). Beautiful rod, in nice condition. It's what got me looking back at old reels, simply bc of its turn-of-the-last-century beauty. I paired it with a Meisselbach 581 (FS) and together they've been shelf queens since.

But lately I've wondered what it would be like to cast. It's 4-1/2ft and quite stiff, but not likely powerful enough to be a "trolling rod". It's probably a lure casting rod as the early "bait casting" rods of the day were long and limber. I'm guessing it'll take a 1/2oz to load it. I think I'll go ahead and load up that 581 and take the rig for a spin. I'm a bit of a rod snob (in terms of fishability) so I might need to bookend that session with a  . Gee maybe I'll spin up some horsehair or milkweed fibers while I'm at it.

[Paul Roberts]

So... I took that (very) old Horton steel and Meisselbach 581 out for a quick spin. I wasn't expecting much from either in terms of casting efficiency. In fact, I had an idea the rod would simply be too stiff and the reel would be raspy and snub casts down pretty quickly. What kind of tackle were most fishers using —or subjected to— 100 years ago? Could I get 50ft?

I loaded the reel with 15# Mason Nylon braid (over some 60# PE backing). It was raining on and off hard so I only took a couple of casts. But that little reel bombs! Kinda shocked me! I hit 78ft with ease and can see it could yield much more. It's very smooth and quiet. The FS apparatus —a double dog clutch (sounds bad-####, doesn't it, from a middle school perspective)— is the same clutch that J.A. Coxe used much later on the venerable model 25's. This clutch makes for a smooth, and quick, point-n-shoot caster.

The rod was made by Horton Manufacturing for Winchester under the trade name ARMAX. Horton sold them, too, under the in-house name of Bristol (Horton located in Bristol CT). My particular model (or thereabouts) appears in both Bristol and Winchester catalogs as early as 1910 (oldest catalog I've seen) to 1935 when newer technologies replaced them. The reel, a Meisselbach 581 (FS model),  was sold from 1907 to 1929. So, we're looking at an outfit that dates back to around the turn of the last century.

The little 4'6" rod is mighty stiff and was likely something of a "power rod" for heavier lures and heavier duty, at least in the casting department. A 0.58oz practice plug didn't put much of a bend in it, although it did cast well, the reel having decent start-up inertia performance. The stiffness would certainly make accuracy a challenge. Horton's description of the rod, or similar models, touted it as a "casting rod" that could also be used for trolling. As artificial  lure fishing —for bass in particular— became popular, "bait casting rods" (like the 8-1/2ft long Henshall Bass Rod of the late 19th century, used for tossing live bait), became shorter, and eventually came to be known as "plug rods". Modern lingo calls them "baitcasting" rods. The 1904 ad below mentions the "Kalamazoo Casting Rod", an early short casting rod for "bait-casting" (lure casting; Note the hyphenated word "bait-casting").

In the end, although being beautiful, and cool, to look at, I won't likely be doing much, if any, fishing with it. It's badly unbalanced and awkward on the retreive: too heavy at the tip end and with a short straight handle. Add the line management required for the NLW reel and it becomes just too awkward. Perhaps one could get used to it. But, for me, it'll remain a shelf queen.

[oc1]

I spent a lot of time with that Meisselbach.  Took it fishing but didn't fall in love.

The steel rods could only be appreciated when compared to what had come before; split bamboo, whole bamboo or hardwood.  Come to think of it, I do not recall seeing a pistol-grip-type of bamboo or wood rod for baitcasting but maybe they had them.  I doubt that split bamboo could be made much lighter than tubular steel so it would still be tip-heavy and hard on the wrists.