The Split Cane Fly Rod
(Excert from Part III: Research and Technique)
A Fly Fisher's Life (1959)
By Charles Ritz
Our sincere thanks to Crown Publishing Company
September 21st, 1998
Publishers note: Since this
publisher is older than dirt, it occured to me that some may never have
seen many of the older books. From time to time, we hope to
excerpt interesting segments from our personal library to enlighten,
entertain and perhaps amaze our rod building friends. Some things
are older than you might think. Most of these books are long out
of print, and if we spark an interest in you, check out the used
book stores, or one of the mail-order book sellers. Armchair Angler
in Hillburn, NY is one we particularly like. We previously
ran a series on bamboo from Ring of the Rise, (check the archives)
which I understand is now available in reprint. Your suggestions
and comments are always welcome.~DB
The Split Cane Fly Rod, Part Four
(Excerpt from Part III: Research and Technique)
"The Perfecting of Prototypes: essential
conditions and methods of work"
"Perhaps I amy be forgiven if I mention
my own rods but, to be in a position to perfect fly rods as
I concieve them, one must know the whole basis of manufacture,
the mechanism of casting and be an experienced fisherman into
the bargain. One must spend all one's time between fishing and
the factory and two continents. One must avoid at all costs
becoming too individual: devote a great part of one's time to
studying fishermen in action, so as to grasp the general basis
of their technique of casting and also examine their principal
faults. One must keep up to date with every novelty, every new
trend, and be on intimate terms with the very rare specialists.
And, finally, one must have at one's disposal a practical
experimental ground of the first order: a river highly populated
with trout. I acquired this last adventage thanks to the generosity
of Edouard Vernes, President of the Casting Club of France, on his
fishing on the Risle, and during my numerious stays on the Traun,
in Austria. Finally, I was able to find partners who were
passionately concerned with the question as I was: Edouard Plantet,
works manager at the factory at Amboise, and my friend, the casting
champion of the world, Pierre Creusevaut. I think Creusevaut is
one of the greatest judges of fly rods in the world. In an average
year, he casts for six hundred hours.
In the same way that Weatherby, the
great American armourer, has proved that for sporting rifles the
methods of the artisan can no longer stand up to modern mechanisation,
so it is with the manufacturer of split bamboo. It is an identical
problem and I am positive on the point. The tempering, the cutting
of the sections and the glueing are mechanical operations; but it
was necessary to await the birth of perfected machines invented
by professional engineers. The great artisans of the past were no
more than ingenious handicraftsmen, without any real mechanical
knowledge. They improvised their machines as best they could, and
succeeded in making them work thanks to their cleverness and
dexterity. For instance, one of the artists in split bamboo cuts
his triangular sections with two minute circular saws which move
along a sliding carriage to which is fixed the length of split
bamboo. They are pulled forward by the hand of the operator with
the aid of band. It is the machine for cutting sections which has
superseded the artisan's methods: it turns up to 1,200 revolutions
a minute.
The precision and uniformity of result reaches
almost the exactness of working in metal. There is, however,
one part of the process that depends entirely on the experience
and acumen of a specialist: the choice of the raw wood and the
selection of the sections once they are glued." ~ Charles Ritz
Next time,"My methods of trial and perfecting."
|
