I did search for this one under disassemble and take apart.
I have worked with my hands on cars, wood, metal, plastics and fiberglass for most of my life. Add to this a boxers fracture on the left hand and numerous broken, cracked and otherwise abused fingers. Anyway I have pretty thick hands as a result and my dexterity isn’t great.
I did apply wax to my ferrules as the site directs and assemble my rods as also directed. I was wondering if anyone with working hands, had any tricks to aid in breakdown without putting any pressure on the guides of the rod. Its kind of hard to grip the rod and not have it slip. Any help would be appreciated.
Hello Jeff, if you’re having trouble taking a rod down, you may be forcing it a bit when you’re assembling it. Try just a tad bit lighter on the assembling part and you should be able to take it down more easily. Others should have more ideas also.
One of the neat things about that wax is that it works like wax on wood. Not only do things slide together easier, it helps hold things in place until you want them to come apart. So, as Moose mentioned, this makes it easier to really stick that joint together. Don’t stuff it together so tight.
I sometimes will put my thumb against the guide foot. You are not putting much leverage on the guide at that point and it’s encased in epoxy. Up on the guide itself, you can put enough leverage to damage things.
If the problem you’re having is in the fingers slipping on the rod when you take it apart, try using a couple of to those rubberized jar gripper thingies. Maybe warm up the ferrules with a hair dryer before trying to part the parts.
Like Betty said! Or you could use a couple of kitchen rubber gloves. You don’t have to wear them, just wrap them around the rod on either side of the ferrule. Even the large sizes will wad up into a very small and packable package. If the rod is stuck too tight, you can use the behind the knee method of separation. You can hold the rod behind your knees with your knees close together and gripping the rod with rubber gloves, just spread your knees apart. This method is known to separate the rod sections in a straight line without torquing or bending the rod and the ferrules.
If the rod just won’t come apart, take it to your favorite grocery store. Ask for the frozen food manager, don’t laugh. Ask if you can put your rod in the big freezer for an hour or so. Cold contracts, take it apart before it warms back up.
Hugs,
LadyFisher
Many thanks for the ideas. Mine is definitely a grip thing. I thought about the jar lid grippers but had never considered using the knees for leverage. I do use a freezer for chilling wheel bearing races prior to seating them to make them shrink, and it works even better when a propane torch is used on the hub to make the hub expand. Sorry to get off topic, but do you all use the wax on graphite? The rod is a TFO TiCr-X and I assumed that you do. I’d really like to keep it a loooooong time
Hello Jeff: If you are fishing with a companion there is a method for separating the two pieces without damage to the rod. I have not had to try it but others on the web site where I swipped the info from have said it works. Check out the link.
Tim
If your grocer takes a dim view of this and won’t cooperate, wrap the offending ferrule in a bag of frozen peas. This works pretty well. I actually wrap only the male section of the ferrule just above where the rod sections join. The male part of the ferrule is what needs to contract to loosen the joint. Hope this helps!
Clean your ferrules and lubricate with some paraffin or candle wax. This will help hold your rod together while in use and it will be easier to separate when you are done for the day.
Jeff, have you tried fishing with it yet? A rod that won’t come apart is trying to tell you something. Sure if you put it in a freezer it could solve your problem. But imagine, if you will, if we suggested you put your dog in the freezer every time it wanted to play ball? It would be in the papers! News crews would be out interviewing your dog and your dog would be on TV telling all of us, “He was a quite man, pretty much kept to himself, I was thinking this is it, the turkey is no help, If I ever get out of here I will never play ball again.” You would be the bad guy!.. Well anyhow my point is fly rods have feelings too and you should take him / her fishing and when he / she has had enough it will come apart.
The reason you can’t get a rod section apart is that a vacuum develops in the hollow section. When you put the rod together, the air pressure inside the rod section and outside were equal. As the day warms up or if you store the rod together in a hot car, the air in the rod section expands until some of the air leaks out. As the rod cools, the air in the rod contracts and seals the ferrules together even tighter so that they seize. Waxing the ferrules does not allow the sections to seize.
To break the seal, you need to cool the ferrule so that the female and male sections of the ferrule contract at a slightly different rate. This will break the seal and equalize the pressure
If you can’t put the rod in a freezer, the best way is to get canned air. You can get it a Best Buy or Office Max. It is pressurized air or CO2 to blow dust off of electronic parts.
Turn the can UPSIDE DOWN and spray over the ferrule, overlapping on both sides. The compressed gas will come out as a LIQUID and as it evaporates, it will cool the ferrule. It will get so cold that frost will form. Then pull the joint apart.
I read Silver Creek’s post and remembered something that worked for me a few times when rods used to get stuck. I’d dip the rod under water and in a few tries it would almost always come undone. I can only remember once when nothing seemed like it would work and i just put the still assembled rod in the back of the truck (8ft bed) and went home. Later, when the air temp cooled down, the rod came apart, but still with some effort. I was afraid i was going to twist the end off it was so stuck. From then on it was a few light swipes of candle wax on the ferrule and no probs since.
Thanks for all the help, folks.I haven’t even fished it yet. The water’s still too cold yet for the bass and bream here. I think we all could use some fishing as I hope you all are not half as afflicted with cabin fever as I am. My grandfather used to put cork stoppers in his ferrules when he stored his rods. He was a picky especially when it came to his bamboos, but he always did buy the best components with total disregard to price, when he built those rods. I appreciate your tolerance with seemingly simple questions.
Jeff
