‘Eventually I hit on the idea of using double sided carpet adhesive tape. Overlapping strips could be used to reinforce the cork during the application process as well as stick it to the rod. Carpet adhesive tape sticks like nobody’s business but would its adhesive qualities survive immersion in water?’
Obtaining the rod
I wanted to restore an old rod as a gift for my friend and mentor Martin James of this parish. A cane rod was the obvious choice. Cane rods in need of work are readily available at reasonable cost but need to be chosen with care as most are beyond amateur resoration for anything other than an ornamental object. Martin would not be happy with delamination or a dodgy tip.
Despite some weeks of looking I had not come across a suitable candidate. I shared my problem with a mutual friend who said ‘I have just the thing’. Martin had seen the rod at a sale and not bought it because it had been inscribed with the previous owner’s name so my friend bought it and had done nothing with it. A modest price was agreed and I took home an Apollo Taperflash that had seen better days- just the job.
The Taperflash
For those who do not know- the Apollo Taperflash was made by Accles and Pollock of Oldbury in the West Midlands. For well over a hundred years they have produced metal tubes for a wide variety of applications in the industrial and military fields as well as for bicycles and the leisure market. They invented the steel golf club stick as well as trying their hand with fishing rods.
Models were made for a range of coarse and game fishing applications and I would not be surprised- sea fishing too. Apparently the first Accles and Pollock hollow metal rod was launched on an unsuspecting public in 1925 and manufacture continued until the 1960’s. They were regarded as a top of the range rod that many anglers hoped to own some day. Presumably it was the advent of fibreglass that put paid to them. Some were I believe part alloy and part steel. This particular example was a three piece all steel 12 foot coarse rod.
If that rod is anything to go by the name ‘Taperflash’ is a bit of a misnomer and in my view a bit cheeky. Close examination reveals no taper. Gradual reduction in diameter towards the tip is acheived in a series of gentle steps every two or three inches along the top three sections- the tube being parallel between steps. There is no change in the diameter of the butt section at all.
Metal apart, construction is fairly conventional except that ferrules are integral to the tubes and the tip ring is fastened in a mysterious manner with no whippings and no sign of glue or welding- perhaps it was skilfully brazed.
Preparing the rod
The cork handle was damaged and had to be removed along with the alloy butt cap. The cork was very thin as the metal of the butt section itself was almost one inch in diameter. At the top end of the handle were three cork rings about two inches diameter to stop the alloy reel rings from sliding up the rod. One was in very poor condition and had to be removed. The other two though salvageable would be better replaced if possible.
Before removing those last two rings I telephoned two or three cork suppliers to see if they could supply suitable cork for replacements. They were helpful but to a woman and man discouraging. They said whether a hole was put into a ring or a ring fashioned round the hole- the cork would disintegarate. So I decided to leave the two rings in place and salvage them in situ. A big mistake.
I removed the rings- except the recalcitrant tip ring which would not budge for love nor money and stripped the rod down to bare metal. To preserve the ‘Taperflash’ sticker I masked and worked carefully round it with the abrasive. The rod was rubbed down with wet and dry (wet of course) only to 280 grit which if done carefully to avoid ridges caused by cross scratches gives just as good a finish as if 1000 grit had been used. And the coarser grit probably gives a better key for the paint. I also prepared a piece of scrap steel tube to the same standard to use as a test piece.
Purists stop reading here
Rebuilding the rod
The first job was to paint the rod to minimise corrosion and contamination of the prepared surface. The cork rings and other ends of the sections were masked and the rod sprayed in black gloss as the original.
When the paint was dry it was wrapped in clingfilm to prevent damage to the paint and next I turned my attention to the handle. As already suggested the cork rings were in less than perfect condition.
PVA has remarkable properties. There has been some on an outside wall of my house for over ten years that still looks the same as it did at the start so I thought I could risk it on the cork. The PVA was diluted about with water about 5:1. I do not think the ratio is critical as long as the solution is fairly watery. Numerous ‘coats’ were applied. As soon as one soaked in another could be added. When the cork was thoroughly dry it was gently rubbed with 60 grit to produce a fair finish.
The diameter of the reel rings mean the handle needs to be about the same diameter as the original. So 1mm cork it is. 1mm cork is readily available in fairly large sheets and I bought plenty. Just as well.
My first idea was to glue an oversize piece of sheet round the handle and trim it afterwards (the two edges have to meet perfectly). That does not work. The next idea was to wrap the sheet round the handle- carefully mark the size cut and glue in place. Another disaster.
An already tricky task was made more difficult by the need to make the edge snug to the cork ring at the top of the handle as well as getting the edges to meet perfectly. The fragility of 1mm cork meant that there was almost no scope for manoeuvre. It had to be put in the right spot first time.
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Eventually I hit on the idea of using double sided carpet adhesive tape. Overlapping strips could be used to reinforce the cork during the application process as well as stick it to the rod. Carpet adhesive tape sticks like nobody’s business but would its adhesive qualities survive immersion in water? A test was needed. I can report that there was almost no deterioration in half an hour, after a full hour significant deterioration was apparent. Overnight all was lost. In absence of a known viable alternative the test was deemed passed.
Even so the method of pre-cutting the cork did not work. Getting the size right seemed impossible. I concluded that the problem lay in the 2mm difference of diameter between the inside and outside of the 1mm cork. So I made a paper template and cut the cork to it which produced an acceptable result. The carpet tape was applied to the cork in overlapping longitudinal strips with 1/4 inch protruding from one long edge and nothing from the other long edge. Putting the protruding edge of the tape on the rod first meant the two edges were firmly joined by the tape.
No doubt it would be possible to devise some sort of jig to feed the cork onto the handle. But even then it would probably have been necessary to remove the old cork rings. If I was doing it again I would replace them with a nice wooden ring.
Next was the bit I was most looking forward to. I wanted to make some changes to personalise the rod for Martin. Instead of the standard slightly corroded alloy butt cap a wooden bung seemed a good idea. I do not have a lathe but I do have a pillar drill. I cut a piece of nice hardwood into a rough mushroom shape. Then I screwed a coach screw halfway into the endgrain of the stem of the mushroom, cut off the head of the coach screw and fastened the resulting spigot into the chuck. I then proceeded to shape and smooth the bung using a strip of 60 grit about 18 inches long.
When I was happy with the bung I smoothed it to 280 and put the spigot in the vice to hold the bung for varnishing. I applied several coats of well thinned varnish. Here’s where fine paper does pay off. The varnish was smoothed down to 2/0 paper and 8 or 10 coats of unthinned varnish were applied with a gentle 2/0 rub down between coats.
A schoolboy error
Thrilled with the deep shine on the bung I trimmed the cork at the butt end of the handle and applied glue to the stem of the mushroom. Yes. I know. To the stem. So as the stem was inserted gobs of glue came out and stuck to my beautiful bung. I gently cleaned off as much as I could but there was no choice but to wait for the glue to dry, rub it off and start varnishing again. That bung must have about twenty coats of varnish.
The handle end was then covered in layers of cling film and the process of whipping on the rings commenced. I did not want to use the original rings as to my eye the larger rings were somewhat agricultural. I wanted something more refined in the way of lined rings. A suitable set was obtained. To use lined rings except for the tip ring would be odd. All efforts to tease off the tip ring had failed. There was no choice but to cut it off.
Whipping proceeded as one might expect. I used a maroon thread of similar colour to the original.
Uncharacteristically for our family my daughter Rosie has a neat, legible hand so I asked her to inscribe the rod as part of the personalisation.
All that was left was to varnish the rod. I used my test piece to see which gave the better finish- hand painted or sprayed varnish. The spray won hands down but there was a problem. The varnish made the whippings translucent- some of the black of the rod showed through giving the whippings a grubby appearance. PVA to the rescue again. Checking on the test piece demonstrated that with half a dozen or so coats of dilute PVA allowing the whippings to dry between coats eliminated the translucent effect.
So the rod itself was finished….
The old bag
The old bag was in poor condition. Sewing is not my strong point but my partner Helen is a dab hand. We purchased a heavy canvas like material and Helen set about making a bag. It turns out that rod bags are not as easy to make as it would appear. Several conundrums cropped up which occasioned full and frank exchanges of views. But in the end Helen produced a bag which Martin declared to be ‘just like they used to be’. One more point- a rod bag uses much more material than you might expect.
Writing & Photographs Neophyte, Summer 2022
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