There are some cheap bamboo blanks listed on ebay by JK’s Anglers Roost. Doug Macnair posted a positive review of them, but it may have been a paid endorsement. Does anyone know if these would be worth the $75 starting price?
There have been a couple of discussions on these blanks. You might do a search for them. I sent you a PM, too.
Greg
Are these blanks the ones being sold on ebay by bobo? He has very good feedback and I am curious if any of the members have seen them up close. He does not say where the cane comes from though which is somewhat curious.
Dan
Since no one else has replied, I’ll jump in so you don’t get one of these while you’re waiting for a reply - keep searching for the post where someone said they had a Very Bad experience with these.
I was afraid that may be the case. I’m more interested in learning to build them myself. I just ordered Wayne Cattanach’s book as my first book to study. Hope to get involved in a bamboo building class this fall to get started and am starting to collect the planes and any other tools as my budget allows. Every time I fill er up it just gets me madder. I figure driving my pickup truck is costing me $5.00 per 15 miles now!!!
Dan
You might be interested in building a ‘Poor Man’s Quad’ or PMQ as your first rod. This is a simple rod made of two strips of cane. It is hand planed without a form. The only tools you would need are a hand plane and a caliper. I was able to put one together over a weekend. While this style of rod will not be as pretty as a 6 sided rod (it’s much harder to get them perfectly straight) it was a quick way to get into cane…
Here is a link with more info…
http://www.rodbuildingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=15417
Hey Kengore, THANKS very much for this input!! I am certain that this is a great way to get my hands into some cane at a reasonable rate. I’m beginning to think it’s like crack though… JK…
I read th efrist two pages on the link and it is very interesting I’ll get thru the rest later.
PS You have a pm on another issue.
Dan
I ordered one of the ARE blanks and am in the process of assembling it. I decided to take a chance on it since I am in part of the country where I can’t really get my hands on bamboo to test cast, so I don’t know what a good blank casts like. I can’t give a comparison of it to others, but I can give you my (uninformed) opinion overall. My blank is a 3 piece 4/5 weight with an extra tip for 4 pieces total. I’m doing this as a exploritory exercise, so I’m keeping all of the components on the economical side of things. I figure if I don’t like it for whatever reason, I can get a reasonable bit of my money back out of it. And if I do like it, I can build another with higher quality components.
Unlike what I’ve heard from others, the blank came in straight as an arrow, except that one of the 2 tips is a little wiggly. But that’s OK, because I forgot to order a second tiptop. :oops: The glue lines look pretty tight, and the blank looks decent. I’m sure it isn’t on the same level as top end builders produce, but it is much better than I expected. It appears that his builders are getting better.
I have all of the ferrules glued on now, and the one tiptop and handle assy. I am planning on getting the guides wrapped on this week and getting it out in the yard to cast soon. I’ll post pictures later to keep you updated.
I’d love to try one of the PMQ type blanks, but I don’t have the time or ability to build one. I’ll most likely have a pro builder put a rod someday when I get some disposable cash in hand. In the meantime, I’ll have to play with the options I have.
Hi all, [i]'m new to this board as of Wed 5-28-08. I just completed a 2 piece 4-5 wt 7 1/2 foot bamboo blank from Angler’s Roost. On a scale of 1 to 10 for straigtness, my blank probably scored about an 8. After purchasing NS ferrules for it, and building the reel seat, cork handle, etc, I took it out on my lawn today. It cast a 4 wt WF line very well up to 35 feet or so. I always feel that is about as far as I can control my line on water, and about what I expect for bamboo. I am very satisfied for the $75.00 price for the cane. If I paid three hundred or more for the cane, I’d demand a 9.5 or 10 for straightness. I cannot find the old posts with the negative comments about the Angler’s Roost cane quality. Can anybody explain how I find those old posts? When I search for Cheap Bamboo, I get a “no match” answer from the forum. Thanks…Tom Rust (aka rustyspinner21)
Make sure you are searching the forums and not the blogs and that you change the search date back to the beginning and not the last month. I got 46 hits for cheap bamboo, and 4 for anglers roost. Anyway, here they are:
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=16034
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=19227
I have to say that most of the negative comments about the guy just wasn’t applicable in my experience. The blank wasn’t junk, it was shipped quickly, and I had no problems at all. Apparently, the quality has improved immensely, which is what I had heard elsewhere that made me take a chance in the first place. I’ll see how everything is when I get the guides on and test cast it.
Hey there ol’ blue do you have any updates on this blank?
Dan
Yeah, I’ve got it finished and have test cast it in the back yard. It doesn’t cast too bad based on 2-3 minutes in the backyard with a 4 weight line, but I’ll have to take it out fishing to try it out more. I haven’t cast “good” boo, so I really can’t say if it is great or terrible. I’ve been in the middle of a hectic schedule lately, and will try to get pics up this weekend. Feel free to PM me if you’d like.
Try these. I thought my wraps looked OK, but the closeups show a need for better packing. I like the effect of the see-throughs. I used Sulky 40 thread and Minwax wipe on poly for the finish.
A couple more pictures:
Wow, that is a fine looking rod.
I have looked at those for a while now and in my opinion would have no problem getting one from that dealer. I have tons of experience with eBay and know full well that a poor product will simply get lambasted in the feedback arena and I don’t see that in the case of this seller.
He has a return policy as well so how could one go wrong? Worst case scenerio, you end up with a low end bamboo rod that you built for little money relative to the cost of what is is your building.
Might be kind of like building a go-cart with a lawnmower engine then complaining that is doesn’t perform like a Ferrari.
It definitely is an economy bamboo. I picked up all of the components for very little money. I think I have around $25 in all of the other components. Not too bad for a first experiment. I’m glad I tried it out on this cheap one first. I did make some stupid mistakes, and would have been bummed out if it had been a quality blank.
BTW, the fuzzies in the pictures are dust, not thread.
Very Nice and I like the wraps matching the reel seat!! It’s so much more fun to build your own, of course now you’ll have a hard time buying off the shelf again.
Dan
I’ve been building on graphite for quite a while, but bamboo definitely has some new tricks to learn.
You get what you pay for…
Phil
Greg,
That made a pretty nice looking bamboo rod. What do those blanks sell for and do they come with the ferrules already mounted?
Thanks
Dave