This rod was a £10 eBay special, a bit of a dodgy buy seeing as the seller put down its value as £250 and had no feedback. After his initial listing failed to get a bite I noticed it was re-listed so put in a cheeky bid under the radar. After a bit of back and forward mails and texts the rod finally arrived and I was left to survey what I had actually ended up with.
The butt section was fine. The transfer was the only casualty with the last “S” of ESS missing and a bit of gold off the top. Nice if it could be sorted but a minor point.
Middle section. In fairness the seller said it had problems but it was the classic out of focus shot taken from half a mile away so it could have been anything. In fact it had a kink of around 18 degrees just past the bottom ferrule and some de-lamination about an inch long was evident. The ferrule was loose and the whipping had deteriorated.
Tip section was OK, slight droop, and the rings had been redone at some point with what looked like cotton. Again the ferrule had come adrift.
Ok, all to play for, it could be saved into a nice rod, providing the middle section dog leg could be resolved.
With a new lake I had found calling, I was eager to get out there and float fish it. I didn’t really want a long drawn out restoration on this rod. Also in its day it was a nice rod but not a special one, being mass produced. The thought of splitting the middle section into its 6 strips, cleaning, fettling and re-gluing didn’t appeal at this stage as I wanted to get out on the water with it so I opted for an interim fix. If it worked, all well and good. If it failed it would be a case of nothing ventured nothing gained and it would go to the bottom of the list to be done again properly at a later date.
I removed the ferrule from the middle section, OK I pulled off the ferrule by holding it in my thumb and forefinger and sliding it off. The kink appeared to be not due to manufacturing errors but by pilot error. The male ferrules on these rods are a simple tube, open ended. It looked like water had been allowed to get into the end of the section which as the ferrule became loose allowed it to creep up the blank by a couple of inches. It also looked as if it had been stored propped up and as the bottom of the blank became wet, it took on a set where it was propped up. With water ingress and a kink appearing, the joints expanded and the glue threw in its hand.
I checked as to where the de-lamination stopped, added an inch and a half on and placed a jubilee clip with six soft wood inserts on each face. This allowed me to tighten up and apply all round even circular pressure on the blank without damaging it. This was to be the bulwalk clip, to hold the blank under compression so to stop any further splitting past this point occurring. The blank was then steamed, the kink straightened out and left to reset under pressure over a few days. On checking it over afterwards the kink was now removed but as suspected the inch long split had now travelled downwards towards the end of the blank. Using a new, extremely sharp scalpel blade I cleaned off any glue residue in the gap, teased it open until it reached the end of the blank and the inserted a thin strip of wood to pare it open. I then blew compressed air into the void to clean out any detrius left, re-glued it and again used the compressed air to blow the glue under extreme pressure into every nook and cranny of the blank. Gluing completed I then placed jubilee clips around the blank with softwood inserts and tightened it up carefully, switched off the lights and left it to cure. I know this will probably have the professional rod builders clutching at their pacemakers but it was worth a shot.
Purists and professionals look away now
Using jubilee clips to clamp evenly ( sorry about the focus)
After a suitable period of curing it appeared to have set perfectly, the kink had gone so I started the rebuild. After doing a spate of MK1V’s with all the intermediates, this was a doddle in comparison and a couple of hours here and there over the weekend, one section drying as another one was rewhipped it soon came along. The rings were past their best so they were replaced as a matter of course with new ones. The ferrules were re-seated, glued and whipped into place. On the two male ferrules, being the open ended type, I left a .5mm overlap at the ends of the blank and filled this void with epoxy resin to stop water ingress for once and all.
Off with the old, on with the new
I had already decided to extend the handle to improve balance and the
aesthetics. Initially I was going to put in a ferrule and have an extension piece which could be removed. On sorting through the bits box the ferrule I thought would do the job was a bit small and not wanting to compromise the strength of the butt and also not wishing to wait until a replacement was bought and delivered, I went ahead with a permanent extension. This could always be removed at a later date to revert the rod back to its original configuration. The original butt cap was replaced. I must admit I think the Octopussy has got the nicest reel bands of any rod I’ve ever come across.
Octopussy reel bands – I think they are the nicest out there.
Last bit to do was to try and sort out the transfer. A bit of jiggery pokery with some black, gold and green paint gave it an indication that that it was now an ESS as long as you didn’t look too closely.
You get the idea..to be revisited and done properly at a later date
So here it is, a Sealey Octopussy ready for its new debut.
Thanks for looking
Rgds
Neil
