While rebuilding a bamboo fly rod, Steve Allen made a simple, inexpensive rod drying fixture built from readily available parts
As I enjoy the history of fly fishing as much as I enjoy fly fishing (and fly tying), I came to the conclusion that I needed a bamboo fly rod. I found a 1948 South Bend 359, 3/2 8 1/2 foot online in excellent condition. As it is not considered a classic rod by any means, I decided to rebuild it as I have always wanted to get into fly rod building.
I stripped the rod down to the bare bamboo blank and the ferrules. Following the recommendation of Matt from Proof Fly Fishing I finished the blank with Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil. I then fabricated a guide wrapping fixture.
I needed a dryer
After wrapping the guides and color preserving the thread, I needed a dryer as I intended to finish and seal the thread wraps with spar varnish, wanting to leave the blank finished with the Tru-Oil.
I spent a few hours investigating how other dryers held the rod blank. In most cases they were designed to hold the reel seat or the grip and rotate the assembled rod. Not having nine feet of work surface I needed to dry the rod in sections. That meant that I would need to use some kind of chuck that could hold small diameter rod sections. On one of the major online sellers, I found a keyless drill chuck with a 3/8th 24 female thread. My concern using this chuck was the possibility of damaging the ferrule ends in the chuck by over tightening. I solved that issue by wrapping the male ferrule with tape and lightly tightening the chuck, or in the case of the grip section that has a female ferrule, I used a short piece of oak dowel to fit into the ferrule and tighten in the chuck.
A motor
I found a synchronous motor from the same seller that operated on 110 VAC, at 9 RPMs. It came with a ¼ inch shaft and was easy to flush mount on a stand.
The next piece of the puzzle was how to connect the motor and chuck. Fortunately, I have a friend who is a machinist and he was able to fabricate the coupler out of brass. The chuck was heavy at ten ounces and I did not want to place stress on the motor so I decided to support the coupler with two bearing that would friction fit inside the wooden stand and take the strain off of the motor. Again, I sourced the bearings from the same online seller.
Bearings
The bearings were a slip fit over the coupler and I used a bit of two-part epoxy to set them in place.
The outside diameter of the bearings being 19mm, I used a 19mm Forstner bit to bore a hole through the wooden stand to hold the motor assembly. I designed the stand to hold the center of the chuck at the same height as the guide wrapping fixture.
Motor direction
I found when assembling the motor that, while the motor operated on AC voltage, I could switch the shaft rotation direction clockwise or counter clockwise by reversing the power leads from the motor. This allowed me to configure the motor to rotate top to back (counterclockwise) with the motor on the right side, thereby tightening the mounting threads on the chuck as the motor rotated, as opposed to the motor rotating in the clockwise direction which could have unscrewed the chuck as the motor rotated.
The total cost of materials was $25.00. The coupler was no charge. The online seller was Amazon.
For a few hours of my time, I have a custom rod dryer that mates very well with my guide wrapping fixture.
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