My two latest acquisitions arrived today. Some of you may have noticed a couple of Aspindale 'Colindales' for sale on the famous auction site. Apparently they have been relisted a couple of times without selling. Well, I think I can shed light on this. Colindales they are not. I believe the seller may need a better set of glasses. They are both Severndales and very nice Severndales at that. Albeit one has about 7 inches missing sadly.... Either that or it has had a separate top section made specifically for tipping with as the top eye on this short rod is threaded for a quiver/swing tip. Strangely enough the action is still sweet, which surprised me.
Anyway, they are both signed Jas Aspindale and neither have any sign of delamination, no sets and both light as a feather. The both feel an absolute delight to handle. One does have a poorly whipped intermediate eye on the middle section, that will be redone but I may use it as it is before then.
So, both rods including P&P came to the princely sum of £54. A nice result I do believe
I have to admit that I have not been fishing for months. Having handled these rods today I am all fired up for a session even if it only on the local canal.
Currently reading......Go Fishing For Bass and Go Fishing For Skate and Rays both by Graeme Pullen, The Kill Switch by James Rollins, Raspberry Pi Manual - Haynes, 'Make: Electronics by Charles Platt' & the 'Myford series 7 manual by Ian Bradley'
Glad you have a good buy there. I have a couple of Aspindales rods and really like the feel of them. I regularly use my Aero 892 even though it has a set in the top, taped up handle & slightly rusty eyes! It's a gem in my eyes and will be with me next weekend trying to winkle out some small carp from the lake of a well known holiday village in Sherwood Forrest. I also have an early rod marked simply "Aspindale of Redditch" 3pc, 11' 6" whole cane bottom 2 sections & split cane top, earmarked for a winter restoration. Having held a number of their rods, I think the quality is often better than some of their more sought after rivals.....and god knows how I'd love to be able to write like that on cane!
Yes, definitely a result. The Severndales would be quite late rods, made during the time Peter Aspindale was running the show along with his wife. They only retired a few years ago.
Peter apparently said that he thought ALL their rods had been hollow-built, and they are indeed lovely light things to hold.
Last year a couple of Severndales made around £140 each!
Last year a couple of Severndales made around £140 each!
Wow! I am not really surprised if they were decent examples. These I have are both lighter and possibly better balanced (not yet put a reel on them though) than a fair few glass float rods I have had. I was just honest with the seller anyway, I am not interested in selling them on, they are, after all, fishing rods. I shall use them to fish with. I may even use them to catch with :beg:
Currently reading......Go Fishing For Bass and Go Fishing For Skate and Rays both by Graeme Pullen, The Kill Switch by James Rollins, Raspberry Pi Manual - Haynes, 'Make: Electronics by Charles Platt' & the 'Myford series 7 manual by Ian Bradley'
In some ways they may be even more desireable than the earlier Aero match rods as these used 'animal' based glues and need careful inspection before buying.
These Sixties rods are made with more modern glues and are less likely to suffer from any delamination.
I've just taken possession of an Aspindale Avondale from the same period. The but section weighs just 640 grams. Almost half the weight of a Marco Test of the same length. I placed it in the hands of a rather well known rod-maker this morning and he seemed genuinely shocked at how light it is...it really does seem to weigh no more than a glass rod.
I owe somebody an apology. Years ago someone suggested that late Aspindale rods were whipped in black and white thread and it just looked yellow and black because of the varnish.
I didn't accept it at the time, thinking varnish was more brown, than yellow.
Oh my. Nobby that does indeed look a very close match. Please let us know what the results are once it has dried.
Currently reading......Go Fishing For Bass and Go Fishing For Skate and Rays both by Graeme Pullen, The Kill Switch by James Rollins, Raspberry Pi Manual - Haynes, 'Make: Electronics by Charles Platt' & the 'Myford series 7 manual by Ian Bradley'
Well, I've done the tip ring on the broken section of this rod...it'll do for quivertipping......and the stuff is a swine!
It's very dry and rough, tends not to want to butt up to the previous thread and is near impossible to seal with dope or even banana oil!
The tip ring seemed fine, but when later varnished, went dark as the dope let the oil-based varnish through. It dried slightly lighter and the old whippings on the other rings are quite stained, so I left it, but determined it wouldn't happen again.
It did!
It's taken me all day to do the new tip section of this simple rod. Ok, it's got double tipping to the rings whipping, common on the top of the range Aspindales, and hard to do right next to a stand-off ring, but each whip was immediately sealed with diluted banana oil , fingered hard in, and the excess added to the other whips that had already dried.
The thread went dark at first, then dried and lightened in colour, and successive coatings made it go less and less dark. Right, I thought, it's saturated now,,,no problems can occur.
And yet two whippings have definitely taken on some varnish! And I expect by morning the varnish will have crept around all those two whippings and I might see staining to ones that seem fine so far.
Looking at the rods I have that were whipped in jasper from new, they all have some staining, be they Aspindales or Marcos. Other colour twists show no sign of contamination, just the yellow and black.
What's the answer?
I just don't know.......I can't imagine trying harder to seal the whips than hard-fingering in diluted banana oil, unless some modern stuff does a better job, perhaps Seymo sealer from H&H?
A water based varnish, finishing off with oil based another day?
Colour-wise, it's prety close...perhaps because the original whippings are so imperfect in the first place.
The weird thing about this whole rod is that it came with one ring re-whipped in black and white and I cut it off to change it to yellow and black.....only to find a break hidden under the sellotape and new whipping. The white had stayed white.
Perhaps these rods were done in black and white and the varnish simply darkened over the next 50 years and turned them yellow? Unless they used a darker varnish on these whippings deliberately to darken them from new....would they really bother?
All these whips are double-tipped in dark red real silk. Not a single one has darkened in colour, and red silk is one of the worst for darkening, so my work wasn't faulty.....the stuff is a swine!
Tomorrow I have to do all the inters.......thank God the red silk is OK !!!!
A wee update. The leaking didn't get worse, though a little appeared on a third whip.
It may have helped that I was varnishing with Mylands No.8, which is very fast-drying.
This morning the leaks seem to have largely disappeared. I've had this happen before, with one rod not losing the staining for 6 months!
Perversely, I added inters to that rod a year later still and then varnished it again......the whipping on the rings darkened inplaces again a full 18 months after first being varnished...only to disappear again a month later. Just weird!
Yesterday, in total, I did only 30 whips and was exhausted and in pain.
Today, still a little stiff, I did all 36 inters, in thin, thin silk, in just a couple of hours, without a problem. I can only conclude that that Tiger Thread is pretty hard to use.
But the new tip section looks OK. I'll post a few images for colour comparison when it has a decent few coats on it.
