A. E. RUDGE...A Champion or a Basket Case Too Far
Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 8:11 pm
I went on a round robin trip home last night to pick up two different rods. First stop was a 99p Octofloat De luxe with a damaged tip followed by the second stop to pick up a £4.90 Octofloat standard, which had a perfect tip to replace the other rods dodgy one.
All sounding good you may think. It was at the second stop when it all started to unravel a bit. The seller was a nice elderly chap who was clearing out some old fishing stuff that he’d acquired on a friends death some years ago but had never got around to actually starting fishing as a hobby. Laid out beside my Octofloat was 4 fibreglass rods, an Apollo steel spinning rod and two absolutely decrepit cane rods, at least I thought they could be cane under the years of accumulated detritus which adorned them. Cleaning them off, I saw that one was a whole cane rod with a broken split cane tip, no name but quite cheaply made and totally uninspiring, apart from being in absolute rag order with electrical tape whipping holding an assortment of mismatched rusty rings. The only thing which could be said in its favour if you were very generous was it didn’t have Chinese writing on it, other than that it was a dog.
The second rod was in even worse condition and look as if it would break or crumble when moved. The name badge was visible and it rather forlornly said E. A. Rudge and a handwritten diagonal script proudly stated “The Champion” which was rather optimistic when it was new, never mind in the clapped out condition it was currently in.
I politely declined the offer of the extra rods telling the seller that I wasn’t interested in fibre glass rods and showing him the two piece boat rods and the two piece kiddies sold spinning rods. I declined the cane rods as too far gone also. As I was about to go he said the cane rods would go in the bin if I didn’t want them, so I bought the pair for 3 quid as there was a pair of pink agates on one and a set of white porcelain tip and but rings on another. I thought the rest of the bits would be good for the runner beans.
Back at home I gave them a quick once over before consigning them to the scrap parts pile and I found myself looking again and again at the Rudge. Not an expensive rod when new, but it was ultra light (probably due to rot!), it had twin splices to get the profile and fine tip installed. I took a good look and looked at its bad points:
Varnish gone
Mildew mottling on the cane
Rings gone or rusty
Whipping falling off at the touch.
Splits in the butt and Mid sections
Ferrules coming off at a touch
Bent.
The good points:
The handle was intact
The handle was intact
The handle was intact
That was about it for the good point other than butt and tip rings were original.
I didn’t have anything like this in my collection and it would be a nice roach rod if it wasn’t knackered. I spotted the warning signs as I tried to justify resurrecting this heap of junk and slowly but surely I set about convincing myself that this was a viable project.
A quick look at the sad thing below.
Because the whipping was actually falling off and it was a reasonably intricate whipping pattern, I sketched out the rod to size on a sheet of paper prior to stripping it down, so if I could repair the blank then I would have an idea how it should look, as judging by its state, if on the remote chance if it could be fixed, it would take a long time until I was in a position to rewhip it by which time I wouldn’t be able to accurately redo it, even from photos.
Well that’s it for now. I’m off to lie down in a darkened room or to see a shrink.
Next instalment I’ll look at stripping it down and probably admit defeat, but for the moment I’ll remain upbeat…..ish.
All sounding good you may think. It was at the second stop when it all started to unravel a bit. The seller was a nice elderly chap who was clearing out some old fishing stuff that he’d acquired on a friends death some years ago but had never got around to actually starting fishing as a hobby. Laid out beside my Octofloat was 4 fibreglass rods, an Apollo steel spinning rod and two absolutely decrepit cane rods, at least I thought they could be cane under the years of accumulated detritus which adorned them. Cleaning them off, I saw that one was a whole cane rod with a broken split cane tip, no name but quite cheaply made and totally uninspiring, apart from being in absolute rag order with electrical tape whipping holding an assortment of mismatched rusty rings. The only thing which could be said in its favour if you were very generous was it didn’t have Chinese writing on it, other than that it was a dog.
The second rod was in even worse condition and look as if it would break or crumble when moved. The name badge was visible and it rather forlornly said E. A. Rudge and a handwritten diagonal script proudly stated “The Champion” which was rather optimistic when it was new, never mind in the clapped out condition it was currently in.
I politely declined the offer of the extra rods telling the seller that I wasn’t interested in fibre glass rods and showing him the two piece boat rods and the two piece kiddies sold spinning rods. I declined the cane rods as too far gone also. As I was about to go he said the cane rods would go in the bin if I didn’t want them, so I bought the pair for 3 quid as there was a pair of pink agates on one and a set of white porcelain tip and but rings on another. I thought the rest of the bits would be good for the runner beans.
Back at home I gave them a quick once over before consigning them to the scrap parts pile and I found myself looking again and again at the Rudge. Not an expensive rod when new, but it was ultra light (probably due to rot!), it had twin splices to get the profile and fine tip installed. I took a good look and looked at its bad points:
Varnish gone
Mildew mottling on the cane
Rings gone or rusty
Whipping falling off at the touch.
Splits in the butt and Mid sections
Ferrules coming off at a touch
Bent.
The good points:
The handle was intact
The handle was intact
The handle was intact
That was about it for the good point other than butt and tip rings were original.
I didn’t have anything like this in my collection and it would be a nice roach rod if it wasn’t knackered. I spotted the warning signs as I tried to justify resurrecting this heap of junk and slowly but surely I set about convincing myself that this was a viable project.
A quick look at the sad thing below.
Because the whipping was actually falling off and it was a reasonably intricate whipping pattern, I sketched out the rod to size on a sheet of paper prior to stripping it down, so if I could repair the blank then I would have an idea how it should look, as judging by its state, if on the remote chance if it could be fixed, it would take a long time until I was in a position to rewhip it by which time I wouldn’t be able to accurately redo it, even from photos.
Well that’s it for now. I’m off to lie down in a darkened room or to see a shrink.
Next instalment I’ll look at stripping it down and probably admit defeat, but for the moment I’ll remain upbeat…..ish.