I recently came by way of a nice old spilt cane fly rod, which owes me very little. I can tell you its ~8.5ft long, not yet had chance to string a line but the tip seems fairly delicate so would prob. take a #4 or 5 line ok. The rod is unmarked, though the blank has lovely colour and the fittings seem of decent quality save to what appears to be a pink (!) ceramic stripping guide. I have it my head that I'll sand off the ugly varnish job, strip off the rings and make a proper job of it. The sole issue I have is very slight play in the brass ferrule. It's eminently fish-able and still pops when pulled apart, but does none the less have a slight wobble. I could replace it altogether, or try and bodge something to snug it up - any suggestions? - wouldn't take much I don't think and I'd prefer to try and keep the ferrule, if I kept one at all, since it is rather nice. The other thought which crossed my mind was to remove the ferrule and plane down either end of the blank to produce a spliced joint. This would inevitably shorten the rod, the taper of which wasn't designed with such a joint in mind, though I'm confident I could make a good job of it. My question is whether this is advisable? Or would I be left with something of a wrong-un?

All the best,
Stephen.

Hi Stephen.

Regarding making the rod into a spliced section rod DON’T do it. Spliced rods are very different from ferruled section rods the mating section needs to be parallel and also reinforced in some way. You can get away with it only on very light rods 2 and 3wts for example IMO.
The ferrule you having problems with first I would just try rubbing the male with an ordinary household candle. The wax applied may just be enough to take up the slack.
Failing that it is possible to tin the male and dress the ferrule to fit the female.
Or you could try squeezing the female ferrule in a drill chuck but be very carefull and repeatedly check the fit sometimes it lasts and holds shape other times the male will just push the ferrule wall back out and you left with a loose fit again.
With this method you need to try it No guarantee.

If I was going to the trouble of restoring a rod I would bite the bullet and fit new ferrules if they were defective in any way.

Good luck Gary

Nicho Bamboo Rod Co

Hi Gary,

Many, many thanks for the advice, it is very much appreciated. I've tried the wax trick but it doesn't help sadly. The male part of the ferrule fits well towards the top, it's the bottom end (the other end to the crown) which is undersized, the wax simply gets squeezed out when pushing the male end home. The joint feels good going together but you can feel the loose end knocking within the female sleeve when waggling / casting. I'll strip the rod and size up for a new ferrule, got to order some silk anyway. If I end up with anything worhty of pics I'll try to post some.


Best Regards,
Stephen.

Hi Stephen

As a last resort try and squeeze the female ferrule in the chuck of a lathe or drill chuck.
You will need to tape it up with masking tape to avoid any damage to the face of the ferrule.
Make the masking tape thicker around the base of the female were the problem is.
This is were you need to squeeze it and slightly reduce the internal diameter
The ferrule was almost certainly been incorrectly made you need to check even new replacement ferrules for this problem. I have now on record replaced 12 sets of chinese rods because the ferrules had this same problem.

If that’s not any good order a new set.

Gary

Had the same problem with on old rod and did exactly what Gary said. Worked for me! It pays to determine exactly where the slack occurs (I mean in a circle of 360°) so you know which side to squeeze.

Johan

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Johan Janssens