Greetings All,

I've been away from rod building for a while and now that I have the time again I want to work on some blanks I've been picking up here and there. My question is about an old Loomis Composites GF 804 two piece blank I picked up some time ago. It appears to have a sleeve over ferrule rather than a smooth taper tip over butt. I'm familiar with the old Phillipson sleeve ferrules where you would wrap the length of the sleeve. My question here is that same approach needed on this fly rod, or is it robust enough for a standard ferrule wrap. Thanks in advance. I've got quite a backlog of blanks so I'm not in too much of a hurry to get to this one. I've got about two years worth of blanks to build and my wife says I can't buy anymore until they are gone.

Kevin

Are you talking about the tip sliding inside tip of the butt section?

Hi Pencer,

Thank you for response. No, I'm talking about the female end of the tip section. It appears to be a sleeve type ferrule. I'll see if I can post a picture of it. The blank is from Loomis' very first company, early 80's.

Kevin

Fenwick was the first company to patent two piece rods that were actually comprised of two separate blanks that fit together tip over butt and were termed feralite ferrules. Because of the feralite patient other companies at the time had to cut a one piece rod which they joined together via three different methods. The first one was via a metal ferrule. The second was by an internal spigot ferrule that protruded from the butt section over which the tip section fitted. The third was an external sleeve ferrule which was glued to the tip section and fitted over the butt section. This sleeve ferrule was used by many manufacturers at the time and this is what you have with the old Loomis blank. Almost all modern day two/multiple piece rods now utilize the feralite design. For the old sleeve type ferrule you can either wrap the entire ferrule, or wrap two short lengths one where the ferrule joins the tip section and the other at the butt end of the ferrule where it overlaps the butt section. Either type of wrap will help reinforce the ferrule and prevent potential splitting.
Norm

some or most of the newer rods don't need the ferrule, but saying that what is old an what is new ? lot of the builders still wrap the ferrules
[I do] even on the new rods I get in today , better to be safe than rebuild the tip , plus hard to teach an old dog new tricks

William Sidney
AK

As in Norm's post Shakespeare used the external sleeve also. (We used to be able to buy their blanks) Not sure if that's still possible.

Thanks Norm. Thats exactly what I was looking for.

All the best,

Kevin