Logo: AN EXTREMELY RARE "ILLINGWORTH " LIGHT SPINNING REEL WITH MAKERS ORIGINAL BOX, CIRCA 1930'S

WOOD RODS

Early Wooden Rods can be found on this page and quite a few different types of wood were used in their manufacture.

Greenheart was the most popular and commonly used rod making material at that time but woods like Lancewood were commonly used for top sections as they were less likely to splinter than Greenheart when under pressure.

Some very early rods were made from woods such as Mahogany, Hickory and Elm. Many of these rods did not have the common male/female ferrule fittings that were found on cane and split cane rods they had what was commonly known as spliced joints where the tapered ends of the rod were spliced together and bound tightly with leather cord.

The Wooden Rods ranged from tiny 7 feet Greenheart brook fly rods to huge and very heavy 18+ feet Mahogany salmon rods.

The range of rods shown here are fully restored to their correct specifications as far as possible.

Have a look at these classic rods and contact me if you have any questions.

Restoration of a Hardy ''The Alnwick Greenheart rod''

The 1910 10ft Hardy rod was in a very sorry state with mid section too short, top section broken, missing/incorrect ferrules, wood button worn out, brass ware split in places. Not un- salvageable but not far from it! Watch the rod change over the coming weeks.

Image: The poor and sorry looking Hardy rod

The first thing to do is to discard the short sections and save the ferrules if they have any. Then finding and cutting original size lengths from a donor rod, use a vernier or a micrometer to measure the tapers at both ends so they match the sizes on their corresponding sections.

Image: New mid and top sections made to suit original rod sizes.

The next stage if either finding or making male amd female ferrules and epoxy fixing them in position and finally drilling and pinning each ferrule when resin has set.

Image: The finished article