Working on my first strip-built rod

[Royce]

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.

[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

[Royce]

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

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.