Life in the bamboo shop

Well, taking a much needed break, here. Today, I've glued up 4 complete rods and cleaned up all of the sticky mess from that. After a wonderful late breakfast (I usually don't eat until this time of day, so no matter what time it is, it's breakfast, right???), I'm about to head back to the shop, brew a fresh pot of coffee and start making ferrules. I'll probably do that until about 7, eat again, then back to the lathe and reel seat time.

I'm not complaining! Not at all! I LOVE this life. Being in that shop, working on rods, smelling the glues, varnishes, bamboo, cutting oil, etc., is like a lifelong dream come true for me. I've been living that dream for quite a few years now, with one short break to run a business for an ex girlfriend (well, she wasn't EX at the time, but...). I made my first flyrod 19 years ago this spring and have loved it since the first one.

In that 19 years, I've gone from planing forms and a buying all of my hardware to a Leonard type beveller and making everything except the snake guides (I even make my own agate stripping guides when someone wants one). I've gone from copying other makers tapers to having a complete set of unique tapers of my own design (knew that Mechanical Engineering Degree would come in good for something).

I wouldn't trade my life now for anything. It's great. I make rods full time, I'm getting married to a woman that I was with 30 years ago and never really got over, and I'm moving to Mountain Home, AR, just about 5 miles from the banks of the White River and 12 miles from the Norfork River (both former homes of World Record Brown Trout). If I get bored with those, the Little Red River (present home of the WR Brown) is less than an hour away. Crooked Creek, some of the best Smallmouth fishing in the US, is less than 45 minutes away, and the place is riddled with small streams and lakes that might have anything in them. Life is grand.

Well, enough of this! I am just in a rare talkative mood and there's nobody here to talk to, so the BB hawkers just have to take the brunt of my yearning to ramble on about things. :)

Later,
Bob

Bob
Ramble on my good man, ramble on.
Brad

I'm sitting here thinking of a change in jobs, yours sounds wonderful

Eric

Bob,

Sounds like a good life is getting even better.

REE

Bob:
Uour schedule sounds similar to mine.

Get up
Eat breakfast
Walk a mile around the neighborhood
Go to the shop
Come in for lunch
take a nap
Go to the shop
Come in for an afternoon break
Go to the shop
Come in for dinner

Sent off my state sales tax and federal excise tax today.

Think I am going to play hooky and go fishing tomarrow. Tly tieing and rod making will just have to wait a day or two.

Life is good.

fishbum

Fishbum, Yep, pretty much my schedule, except for the walks. Those used to be part of the routine, but as of this past Friday, I'm 12 weeks out of a Unicondular Knee Replacement (bad bone out, good titanium in), so standing in front of the bench, lathe and binder for 10 or 12 hours a day is just about all the excercise my knee wants. By night time, I'm ready to sit in a chair and whine for awhile... then I just get up the next morning and do it all again, and call it fun! :lol:

Actually, I'm pushing it a little right now, because I have a fly shop that has four rods ordered and two of them, after I sanded the glue off, just weren't up to snuff, so I had to start from scratch again on those two. Part of the game.

FB, thanks for mentioning the FET and taxes... made my day brighter... NOT!!!! :) Well, at least the FET isn't as bad as it was a few years back. Still, money out of a rodmakers pocket, but someone has to pay for those fishing trips and turkey hunts for the politicians! LOL

Guys, you're right, life is getting better.

Later,
Bob

Great life - but I don't understand about the rods that weren't up to snuff - I'm getting interested in bamboo, and can't picture how you could do all the pre-gluing steps on a rod and not realize something was wrong. Did the sanding go too deep? Or was it something unforeseen. I would hate to go to all that trouble and have something that wasn't usable. I know how a planing form works, but what does a beveller do?

1:51 and I'm done for the day! LOL Yesterday, that is...

herefishy, There are a lot of things that can go wrong.

One of these rods, everything fitted up just fine dry, then I glued it up. It looked fine in the string, so I removed the string and glue from the rod and had a terrible glue line. Not usual, but it does happen. The other one, after I get them sanded, I put "dummy" ferrule on the rods and test cast them. This rod was the perfect dimensions for a 7'3" 3 wt. It cast a 2 wt line great, but a 3 overloaded it and made it... well, it cast like $#!% with the line it was made for. Sometimes, no matter what you do, something like this can happen. This is VERY unusual. No problem... I needed a good 2 wt anyways, so I'll keep it.

Actually, two rods going bad is not bad. I have 11 rods at the same stage right now. I spent most of the night working on hardware for those. 2 out of 11 is a little bit higher "screwup rate" than I'm used to, but hey, Momma said there'd be days like this, and this was one of them!

OK, a Beveller uses two very small saw blades, like mini-table saw blades. They are set on stationary arbors at a 60? angle. The blades don't move up and down, rather a "bed" that the bamboo rides on is moved up and down by a pattern (each pattern is hand cut and there is a different set of pattern boards for every taper I make). As the bed moves up and down, a DC Motor pulls a carriage that pulls the bamboo through the blades. It will cut the SAME dimension every time... no variance, no problems.

Many are under the impression that a beveller is faster than handplaning by far. While it is a bit faster, it's not worlds faster and the preparation is the same for the strips, so a beveller doesn't really save that much time, but it does save a lot of physical labor and it gives you an absolutely consistent batch of strips.

Only downfalls to a beveller are... blades are expensive and must be replaced relatively often, and cost. If you had a machine shop build a beveller like mine, you could expect to put out anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000 for parts and labor... and then you can work on it for a few months tweaking it so it will work like you want it to. Been there! In your spare time, between tweaking, you can spend countless hours making your patterns for your tapers. Worth it in the long run, though, especially if you are doing this full time, like I am. If I were just making rods as a hobby, no way I would use anything but a planing form, but doing it as a full time business, the beveller is a must for me. I plan to add to the machines. As soon as I get to Mountain Home in June, I plan to start work on a miller, which does the same thing as a beveller, except it uses 60? mill cutters instead of saw blades.

Later,
Bob

Thanks for the info, Bob, it was very informative. About the bad glue line - does that mean that the edges of the pieces of bamboo were not perfectly straight, so the glue squeezed out between them crooked? I can see what you mean that the beveller would save a lot of labor - that does look like work to plane the bamboo.

Bob-great posts!!!
Thanks for the informative view.

Hello:
I am new to this bulletin board, so forgive me if I do something out of turn.
I am not a bamboo rod builder, but I do have a question?
Does any builder now or in the past build a rod out of five segments instead of six? We had a discussion the other day and I did not find an answer anywhere. The only ones I am familiar with are the hexagonal.
Would appreciate any info you have.

Dennis

I don't know if any current makers make penta's. I think Uslan made a fair number of five sided rods.
rmb

Recignized you as one of the feathered hooks finest rod makers, I say that because of the back round they give of you...One of these days if I can't own one of Ron's rods...I will own one of yours. :D
I suspect the folks around here alone, Keep you mighty busy...Glad you had some time to get on the board....

Best of luck with the new wife and home!!!!

dpc,

They also make 4 sided rods known as quadrates...Many still do..Like Ron Kusse for one...They have many atrabutes that make this the single most wanted Boo design that I will one day own.... Just do not have the cash for a rod from the caliber builder I want one from.. :( ..........YET! 8)

Thanks for the reply on the penta's.
Dennis

The saga continues... I was in the shop until about 11pm last night. Short day for me... got in late (about 11 AM), left early, only about a 12 hour day! I never did get to the reel seats I mentioned on the opening post of this thread, but ended up making ferrules and shaping grips all day yesterday and most of last night. Also spent about an hour replentishing my supply of hex shaped winding checks. I didn't have any to fit any of the rods I'm working on right now, so had a little sit down session at the lathe with the 2024 Aluminum and punched out about 20 winding checks and formed them to hex. Then a little cleaning up was in order. It looked like a bamboo and cork dust blizzard had hit the shop. :lol: Sometimes the schedule just doesn't work out! :?

I'm having another lazy morning. I'm dressed in my ratty clothes getting ready to go back to the shop, but thought I'd see if anything interesting has happened on here this morning.

Well, while I'm sitting here, I might as well tell you what I have on the slate for today.

Today I'll install ferrules on the following:

7' 6" 5wt 2/2 Supreme (The Supreme is what I call the Western Taper... no swelled butt)
7' 3" 3wt 2/2 Flamed Eastern Series (Eastern has a swelled butt, 0.130" over 2.5")
7' 4wt 2/2 Dark Flamed Eastern Series
6' 9" 3 wt 2/2 Dark Flamed Eastern Series
6' 9" 4 wt 2/2 Dark Flamed Eastern Series

I should be able to get those done by mid afternoon, so maybe the reel seats will be on the agenda tonight!

Wish Rita was here. I have a "How it's done" sort of page on my website that I just revamped a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to add more steps in the process to it, and Rita is the chief photographer! Well, plus she makes the breaks a little nicer, although, when she's here, I don't get near as much done for some reason! :D

SUGGESTIONS PLEASE I'm starting a new series of rods that are VERY dark flamed. I really like the way they look, but I'm getting a little tired of calling them "very evenly dark flamed rods" and I need to name them something. My eldest son suggested "The Black Forest" but all I can think about when I hear that is Ice Cream, not fly rods. Besides, they're dark brown, not black, so... Any suggestions. I'm open to any suggestions!

Later,
Bob

Great posts Bob, I admire your dedication in keeping the tradition of bamboo rod building alive and well.

Suggestions for your new line, How about something like Royal Chestnut series, Woodland series or Autumn Brown if you want to suggest the color of the rod.

Regards Mike

to whomever asked...jerry kustich formerly of winston and currently @ sweetgrass rods has been playing w/ pentas (five strip) rods for quite some time now.

dpc,
There are several rod makers today making penta that can be added to the Jerry Kustich list. Jim Beasly and Tim Zietak also make a very nice penta. Good luck with them, hope you find a good one!!

LED

Mmmmmm, dark flamed cane. With a nice varnish finish, a thing of beauty for my eyes for sure.

Something about the woman we never quite get over. I let Vickie get away from me years ago for some stupid reason. We finally got together 7 years ago and life has been blissfull ever since. When you do what you love for a living, with the people you love, live don't get much better than that. Well worth the wait.

Gotta stop using that Sof-Tex. Making me get all mushy and stuff.

Congrats, Bob.

REE

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ron Eagle Elk

When you do what you love for a living, with the people you love, live don't get much better than that.

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You're absolutely righ, Ron.

Well, off to Texas today for me. Kind of missing the Rattlesnakes and Polecats NOT!!! But have things to get ready down there for the move in June, so must go.

Hope everyone on here has a wonderful week and I'll get online when I can.

Bob

Bob
Very nice to hear your voice again. When can we expect Extreme Flyfishing II?
Thanks for the updates.
mcsteff

Bob, Thank you for the commentary. I hope you will continue. I'll be in Mountain Home in a few hours. I'll say Hi to the Norfork for you. Gerry L.

mcsteff... Thanks. I'm probably going to start writing a "new" EXTREME FLYFISHING" this summer, between rods. I'm sure, fishing the White and Norfork on a regular basis, there will be plenty to write about! LOL

Gerry, anytime you're heading to the Norfork after June, just let me know and I'll go stretch a little line with you. I MUST have advance notice, however. At least 30 minutes! (takes me that long to decide which rod to take and throw it in the car). :)

Later,
Bob

...Bob...good to hear...hope that all the past , uh, experiences will allow you to stay more focused this time...good luck & wish you the best! QC is one great & forgiving mentor!! 8)

skeet,

Yeah, QC is something else. The help and advice, both as a craftsman and a businessman, that I've received from Ron is invaluable. I consider him a very dear friend. We talk when we can, but not always about rods. He's a pleasure to talk to and sometimes I just call to say "Whassup!!!"

Well, I will definitely stay more focused this time around. I didn't realize how much I loved rodmaking until I had it taken away from me for the sake of the business ventures of "others". I do dearly love it and will never abandon it again, barring any health concerns.

Later,
Bob

PS: Back in Texas again... just a few more days til I'm back at the shop, then only about 5 more weeks and we'll start moving the shop and furniture to Mountain Home!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RLNunley

PS: Back in Texas again... just a few more days til I'm back at the shop, then only about 5 more weeks and we'll start moving the shop and furniture to Mountain Home!!!

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Bob,

Where in TX? I am in College Station/Bryan.

Question, what happens to the rejects? Have you considered selling the blanks to us lowly folks?

Brian

Brian,
I'm in Paradise, about 30 miles west of Ft Worth. Not for much longer, though. Now less than 4 weeks and the move begins. We're actually leaving here on May 26th.

As for the "bad" blanks, No, I don't sell them. Some of them I fish myself, and some I destroy, but I don't let them get out on the market in any form, even as blanks, as I do not want to take a chance of one of my mistakes ending up out there and someone saying "Man, look at this piece of $%#$... Nunley made it!". Know what I mean???

Well, out of here for now. I'll be back in OK at the shop tomorrow, so I'll probably be in Cane Chat tomorrow night. Hope to see some of you there.

Later,

Bob

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RLNunley

Brian,
I'm in Paradise, about 30 miles west of Ft Worth.

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Bob,

Of course you are in Paridise, you are in Texas, right? :lol:

I understand about the blanks. I am just far enough in my years to figure the worst someone could say is no and they might say yes. You never know until you sak.

Thanks for the reply.

Brian