I am planning to offer a bamboo rod building class for my fly-fishing club over the winter. We/I don't have the tools or skills to build the blanks from scratch so we would be buying the blanks. I was talking to one of the people that would be taking the class today and he asked me if bamboo rod blanks have a spine like graphite or fiberglass rods do. I had to say I haven't got a clue. I have built a couple of bamboo rods from blanks and redone several old rods and never gave the question of spine much thought. So, the question is, do bamboo rod blanks have a spine and if they do, do you determine the spine the same way you would for graphite or fiberglass rods?
Spine for bamboo fly rods.
- Thread starter jerry
- Start date
To be honest I don't look for a spine, but I will "buggy whip" the tip section to see if it tracks straight. Most times I see no difference rotating the section flat to flat and repeating the "whipping" action. The thing I look most at is indexing the tip to the base after I epoxy on my ferrules. I try to find the best flat combination of tip and base (straightest combination and smoothest surface) to locate the guides on the opposite flat. That way when holding the rod in a normal orientation, reel down, empty flat up it looks nice. Just my 2 cents worth, but I am a hobby rod maker with only 27 rods made now. I would not be surprised if others don't have a different opinon and approach.
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I think bamboo rods exhibit a spine the way fiberglass and graphite rods do. I locate it the same way I do with a glass or graphite blank, by bending it around the back of my neck and rotating it to determine the weakest alignment. When I took Dawn Holbrook's rod building class he used the term "vibration rate" instead of spine, but it's the same thing. He had us lay the tip section of the blank on a table and bend the tip down and let go. Then count the number of times the blank "bounced" up and down until it stopped. Do that for each flat surface. The number of bounces equals the vibration rate, and I think the one with the lowest vibration rate is the strongest alignment, so the guides go on the opposite flat. Or just ignore all this, and it probably won't make a significant difference - unless you're in Holbrook's class.
Bambooflyguy
Life of the Party
If the section has a slight set that heat won’t straighten…..I put the guides on the down side of the curve so when the rod is strung up, it’s fairly straight. I guess it could be done either way so it might affect the forward or back cast…..A lot of sets return in bamboo so I’ll just be happy with fish fighting sets!
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