Here’s the before and after photos of the Allcocks Marvel rod I’ve had a go at making good.
The cork had been seriously damaged at some time when the previous owner decided to try to take out a damaged piece with a hacksaw and I decided to tidy the area up and replace the 2 pieces of ruined cork. The idea was to bore out the shives to fit the butt section and then open them up by cutting through one side so that I could spread the shive open enough to fit over the cane. Wrong…………………………, whatever I did each time I tried to open up the shive it broke and after 4 pieces of cork it was obvious it wasn’t going to work. (Can anyone tell me how to do this in the future?). So plan B came into action and I removed the whole of the bottom area of handle with the idea to replace it all by sliding the shives into place.
I had a b#gger of a job to get the brass pins out that held the bottom reel seat ring and the butt cap in position as they had been fitted flush and I had to drill them out with a tiny Dremmel bit.
You’ll see from the photo I came across a piece of turned wood glued to the end of the blank shaped to take the end butt with thread wound around it to take up any gaps. I cut this off carefully leaving the original length of blank and tidied up the whole area ready to fit the new shives.
Fitting the new shives was straightforward using a PU glue that expands as it cures ensuring a good solid fit and held the whole lot in a vice, (very gently), to prevent the expanding PU pushing them apart overnight, although to be honest it cured within a couple of hours.
I shaped the handle to match what I had removed by using the measurements taken before removing the original on a power wrapper with 60 grit paper and finishing it off with 200 grit and gave the whole lot a coat of cork preserver which will help to keep what’s left of the original cork protected and it also blended the whole thing together better. You can still see where the repair is, but it’s not as noticeable as it was without the preserver and while some people seem not to like cork preserver it will at least help to prevent any further damage to the old cork. I’ve fixed the butt cap with the same PU glue which should be stronger than the old animal glue and I didn’t fancy trying to nail pins back into the blank so left them out.
Removing the old guides was easy as the thread was rotten and falling apart and in the case of the tip top was replaced with a thin piece of string!
Again, I made a note of the original positions and after cleaning up the blank, whipped the new English style snakes on and gave them all 2 coats of epoxy.
I also noticed the hook keeper was placed on the top of the rod rather than the bottom but realised this rod had once been re-ringed 180 degrees around as the blank has a pronounced set in it. I’ve deliberately left it as such as my mate who inherited the rod, which was bought in the early 1950s and spent most of it’s time in Africa, wanted to keep it in the original condition he received it, albeit it with modern guides and tip top.
So, there it is, I hope he’ll be happy with this repair and I know he’s off to a small chalk stream tomorrow to try it out on the wild brownies hiding away there in deepest, darkest Wiltshire.
TC
---------- Post added at 08:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:26 PM ----------
oops,
Should read after pics.
TC
Allcocks Marvel
Linear Mode
