Whoops....

[dustin.brace]

I was given three fishing rods today. One is a three piece, 15 ft bamboo surf rod. Well, being the simpleton that I am, I immediately put it together. Now in a moment of some thinking, I atleast sprayed the pegs and their recepticles with spray silicon. Well, the tip section came out but the middle and butt sections are stuck together. Any suggestions?

[dustin.brace]

Never mind... the ferrule simply separated from the bamboo... I guess its broken now.

[Bryan Young]

It may not function as expected now, but it can be fixed.  Post some pics and I will see if I can guide you through it.

The ferrule may be stuck due to suction.  Once you pull the ferrule out, just re-glue it on the rod.

[Norcal Pescador]

Dustin -
It shouldn't be a problem. Was it the ferrule piece that is a simple tube with the closed end (the male end) or the part that the male end fits into?  That will determine the next course of action.  Did I mis-read the problem??
Rob

[dustin.brace]

The male part of the ferrule is stuck in the female. How am I to pull the male ferrule out? I looked up many different suggestions but the one I tried didn't work.



The rod is reportedly 60+ years old so I want to be sure that I don't wreck it.




It's hard to tell what this is; so I will tell you what this is, the inside of the female ferrule.

[Norcal Pescador]

I see a couple of options on solving the problem, but they involve some wear and tear, hopefully not making the rod worthy of the trash can.

First option - take the rod to someone who makes custom rods, preferably with bamboo experience, and have them take a look. They may have encountered this before and have a better (or at least a surefire) remedy than either of the following. I bet he/she won't even charge you.

Second option - it looks like the female ferrule is held on with a dimpled point going into the bamboo. Hold the ferrule over a candle flame to warm up and hopefully soften any adhesive holding it on. When the ferrule is hot enough that you can't hold it, hold the ferrule with one gloved hand and the other on the bamboo about 6 inches above the ferrule. Both hands should be oriented like you were holding a rifle or golf club, that is both thumbs pointing away from your body. Pull and twist the ferrule off of the rod section. The dimple may scar the bamboo but it will be covered when you put the ferrule back on. If you're lucky the female ferrule will be a hollow tube and you can shove the male part out.

Third option - drill a small hole in the bottom of the male ferrule and put in a pick type tool and pull the ferrule out. This is probably easier said than done.

After getting the ferrules separated, it's easy to put them back on using a tip-top glue stick.

Good luck with it and keep us posted.
Rob

[Steve-O]

Dustin,

Same thing happened on my bamboo ocean rod! Not to worry. As long as you take things slowly and carefully, your rod should survive. It made it this far. The bamboo has dried out slowly and shrunk over time but it would have be fairly dry and cured 60 years ago when it was built. The issue IMO is the glue holding the ferrules on has dried and become brittle therefore just crumbles to dust under pressure. So on my rod one of the things I did first was to  very lightly polish the grit, grime, corrosion and tarnish off the outside and inside of the ferrules before too much assembly/dis-assembly of them. I could not see hardly anything on there but we're talking a very few thousandths of an inch that binds them together when assembled. That was more of cleaning and polishing than anything abrasive. No sandpaper. I did use some 000 steel wool on the visible  green stuff but carefully. Then after several times together and apart the glue gave up and the female end came off. Hand heat, steady pulling and slight twisting did the trick for me. Then more cleaning. You might try Brasso if you don't mind removing the patina.

I then just got the tip top adhesive and re-attached the female to the rod. It's holding well.

Rob and Bryan have given you some good advice and you should be able to get 'er done.  You might even be able to re-glue the rod to the ferrule and use a lighter, candle or alcohol burner to warm up the metal to barely warm and pull them apart. OR leave it assembled. At the very least you'll have a nice piece of fishing history to display if you don't fish it. 

I'm taking mine to Alaska in June and will fish it for halibut until I get one that bends the rod HARD. Then most likely I'll retire it. Bamboo rods do take a set or memory when used. That's why you see so many old ones with guides on both sides and a unique tip top for either side. After a while the angler would spin the tip section 180 and fish the "set" out of it.

Let us know how it goes.

Steve-O

[Tennessee]

When joining 2 sections of a bamboo rod together (and NEVER EVER lube the ferrules) simply insert the male into the female until they stop with NO more force. Then holding the rod with a section in each hand and your hands touching each other push one hand into the other. you will feel a slight movement of the sections into each other and your adequately joined.

When you separate the sections, grip the sections again like when you assembled, hands touching each other again, pull straight out. this is not my way its the right way and will prevent you from screwing up a nice rod and never twist.

If you find when joining sections they were to separate when casting you'll know that slighltly more effort is o.k., with your hands joined and you still wont likely over press.

NEVER LUBE>>>>>>>that includes the wiping of the ferrules in the corner of your nose.