I recently discovered that I made a bonehead move. I bought a blank from G. Loomis and ordered an extra tip section with it. i built the rod and matched the work on the extra tip section with the first tip section. I have been fishing this rod all summer, and on a whim decided to use the extra tip. To my astonishment, the extra tip section has a larger ferrule than the other tip, and it easily slips down over the next rod section. I'm sure it was an honest goof on Loomis' part, but now I have the work done and a useless tip section. The question is this, is there some way to shim the ferrule to salvage the tip or am I up the creek on this?

The only thing I know that you might try is to cover the male secrion with a release (saran wrap), fill the female ferrule with epoxy, insert the release coated male and let the epoxy cure. When the epoxy has set, remove the male section and remove the release coat.

I'm going to toss out something that could work, but aside from getting another tip that fits correctly, it's about all I can recommend.

You've got to take up the space in the female end of the ferrule. You could coat the male section with something, but then the original tip would not fit. So try this - saturate a cotton swab with Permagloss and insert it, twisting and turning it as you do, into the female ferrule opening. Let it dry thouroughly and check for fit. You may need two applications. You will want the female ferrule on the new tip to seat the same distance down as the original does/did.

Ideally, you want the fit to be precise all along the entire ferrule. In other words, total contact area between all surfaces involved. This may require some hand fitting/sanding of your Permagloss coated surface. It may take you some time, or you might get lucky and find a simple application does the trick. But short of obtaining another tip, it's the best I can do.

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Since whatever you do will probably void the warranty, you may try trimming the female end of the wayward top section to get it to fit the bottom section. Probably won't take too much trimming to achieve fit.

You may loose a little guide distance but it is better than having a totally useless top section.

Thank you very much for you responses! Is this a great website or what! I think the coating of the female ferrule with Permagloss will work. It is worth a try anyway. Since this is a 4 piece, 4 wt rod the ferrule is very small but I'm sure I can find something small enough to spread the coating inside the ferrule.

The trimming won't work because the ferrule on the larger tip section is so large that it actually bottoms out on the next section. Epoxy will probably result in too thick of a coating, but the Permagloss should be just about right. I can't wait to try this out. Thanks again!
Neil

Couldn't you still contact G. Loomis and see what they'll do. after-all it was there mistake to begin with.