The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Sorry to jump in guys, but how can you tell if the cane is good or not. I have a rod that I would love to strip and start again but is it worth doing if the cane is no good. This rod also has an issue with a ferrule, the issue being I pulled it from the cane whilst being a bit heavy handed pulling the sections apart, although I would guess that the ferrule was not of a good fit.

As I said in my posts John, thats the main bit I don't know how to tell.

J.T wrote:The sod still hasn’t got back to me!

Will give him until this evening and then leave neutral feedback.

Slowly, slowly catchy monkey, J.T.

Once you've left the negative then there's no hope of resolving it. I'd give him a bit longer as he may be away for a day or so. Like I said, he's got good feedback so give him the chance to sort it out for you.

Yes you are right of course, I'm just a little peeved as you can probably tell.

Will give it till next week.

The other thing I was considering doing with the Rod is turning it into a short rod for one of my Daughters, maybe a crazy idea though seeing as I haven’t even had a crack at doing anything to a rod yet! :chuckle:

The only sure way to test cane is to bend it I suppose....if it doesn't break and springs back as straight as it was before( not all rods are tapered to be straight unloaded)then it's OK.


If it is slow to go back to straight it might have problems, though adding a day's worth of intermediate whippings can help here, suprisingly...I don't know how, but it's worked for me before.


If it has a stiff unbending spot if might have had a de-lamination repaired with too stiff a glue and will be in danger of a break right next to that repair. The de-lamination will often appear as a black line appearing at the joint of two of strips of glued bulit cane. Winkling the strips apart to re-glue is a lot easier if it is near and end of the rod...and often it is indeed the the tip below the tip eye that has given up. Cut off the tip eye silk and remove the scraps and you can open the damaged cane apart with a scalpel blade...slowly. When glued and bound and left to set you will find the tip completely diferent the next day...it stiffens and tightens the whole tip up.

Delaminations might mean ferrule removal, even replacement if it won't come off, or just splitting the strips slowly apart and pegging them open as you run glue in there. For these I use a two-pack epoxy with a 12 minute setting time for a nice compromise between stiffness and strength.

For tips I use Cascamite...don't breathe the dust in!


Knocking ferrules is a whole subject in itself....but I do want to try one of Sean's converted pipe cutters one day!



So little of this can be done on eBay...you aren't likely to get a straight answer to any questions, simply because the seller won't understand.

EBay has opened up the world of selling and buying old tackle, but it's not without one big problem.

You can't have a waggle!

Sean, pray tell about the conversion. I dug one of my old man's pipe cutters out but discounted on the crounds that I couldn't figure out how to replace the cutter wheel with something to keep the ferrul in place. Be very interested in that, if you don't mind saying.

Actually chaps I haven't converted any pipe cutters. I read about it on one of the US forums when doing some research and reported it on here. I think one of the chaps on TPBTW has done the conversion. What you have to do is remove the cutter and replace it with a roller of some kind, the person I'm talking about used a grommet cut in half.

What I've done with reasonable success is use a pair of mole grips (PROTECT THE FERRULE BEFORE DOING THIS), just nipping the ferrule and working the grips around it. You need about 1/8 to 1/4 turn past the initial contact.

I'll see if I can find the other thread and post a link.

I've managed to tighten a few loose ferruls by clamping them up in my lathe chuck. It's awkward and limited but it does work.

I used Sean's pipe-cutter dodge, written up on the Storing Cane Rods thread: http://www.traditionalfisherman.co.uk/v ... tter#p6598

A Medina going cheap if someone needs a stalking rod

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7-3-Split-Can ... 5891e513f2