Bamboo Fly Rod Manufacture - Manufacturing fishing rod blanks @ www.ScottieRods.com

Bamboo Fly Rod manufacture

Manufacturing Bamboo Fly Rod blanks

Welcome to our workshops, this page shows where we work and some of the machinery we use to make Bamboo Fly Rods.

Firstly we feature the manufacturing process that we follow to bring you our fine quality cane/Bamboo fly rods. This page will also include other photos we feel may be of interest.

No.1 : Heat Treatment :

We regard this as the most important part of the rod building procedure without the correct tempering of the bamboo all the work that follows would be a waste of time . We heat treat our bamboo at a precisely controlled temperature for precisely controlled time in a specially built oven equipped with the latest digital technology.

No.2 : Splitting :

After heat treating each culm is hand split into the correct width strips for the rod being made.

No. 3 : Dressing Of Nodes :

The nodes are the growth rings of the bamboo each node is hand pressed and then flattened to keep it as short as possible ensuring no weak spots.

No.4 : Milling The Strips :

We are particularly proud of our milling machine it is hydraulically operated and weighs three tons, it is this weight and precisely controlled feed which gives our rods such precisely cut strips ensuring no glue lines and a perfect taper.

No.5 : Gluing The Strips :

We use a glue specially developed for the aircraft industry which never deteriorates and is totally impervious to water. Each section is hand strung to ensure perfect butting up of sections.

No.6 : Cleaning Up The Sections :

Each section is hand scraped and rubbed down this is the most skilful part of the the whole process as uneven cleaning results in an un-hexagonal blank which would mean that the rod/blank would need to be scrapped.

No.7 : Straightening :

Again a very skilful part of the process each section is hand straightened over a naked flame until every twist and turn is removed a very time consuming job. The finished rod is also re-straightened to ensure a perfectly straight and twist free product.

No.8 : Handling :

All our rods feature handles of floor grade cork and are made up of individual cork shives and hand turned in a high speed lathe to ensure a perfect finish, any imperfections are then filled and the handle turned again using 1000 grit paper.