Mary Ann and I just sold our house in Corvallis, Oregon after 18 years and moved about 120 miles to the east in the town of Sisters, Oregon. We’re both very excited about the move and our new house, and we are much closer to terrific year-around trout fishing…and much drier weather. Mary Ann has also started guiding in the fall and spring timeframes for Jeff Perin of The Fly Fisher’s Place in Sisters. But, I don’t have a fully set-up and functional workshop for my bamboo rod building at the new house. For now, I’ve shoe-horned my big tools into a corner of the garage. And, I’ve put up plastic in the corner for a make-shift rod dipping operation. In fact, later today I’ll be dipping the fourth coat of varnish on a new 8′ 0″ 3 piece 6 wt. rod. Finally, I’ve temporarily taken over a bedroom in the house for rod wrapping and finishing work…sharing that space with fly tying. I’m fully functional and building bamboo rods to meet all my orders, but it’s very cramped in this new arrangement. I’ll break ground in the spring on a complete new rod shop…boy is that ever an exciting prospect! Here are a few pictures of my temporary rod building set-up:
Tag Archives: wrapping guides
Hand wrapping guides on bamboo fly rods
Here is a little video showing how I hand wrap guides on my bamboo fly rods. I don’t use a standard rod wrapper with a tensioner. Instead, I hand wrap using a fly tying bobbin to hold the thread. I use Pearsall’s Gossimer 6/0 Silk Thread on all my rods. Going slow and packing thread frequently is the key to getting great wraps. I spend about 30 to 40 minutes on each guide. So, I’ve sped up the video in the middle to shorten it up. Enjoy!