Working on my first strip-built rod

I received my copy og John Bett's "Making Strip-Built Fly Rods...". Let me start by saying what a great book it is. Really more of a work of art than a book. The drawings and pictures make it easy to follow. If I never am able to build a functional wood fly rod I'll still be glad I bought the book.

Now a question...

For the record I am building this first rod out of white ash. It will be a 2 piece 8' rod. My plan is for this to be about a 4 wt. rod. I am about done tapering the top section. I have noticed there is a slight bow about 8" from the tip. Not much (less than 1/4") but noticable if you sight down the blank. What effect do any of you think this will have on the performance of the rod? When I wrap on the guides should should the bow be on the top of the rod or the bottom?

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Thanks.

did you check the moisture content of your wood first?if its above 6% i would expect it to bow much more over time

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Originally Posted by mnklagoon

did you check the moisture content of your wood first?if its above 6% i would expect it to bow much more over time

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Thanks for the thought. I hadn't thought about the moisture content aspect. However, I think this SHOULD be minimized by the way each of the 6 strips are cut and glued up.

Now that I think about it I might very well have caused the bow myself. The technique, in a nut shell, is to mount the straight blank on a lathe and using a set of sanding blocks sand the taper. Well, the taper is getting quite small toward the tip so I may have caused the bow by biulding up heat from the sanding process.