Comments embedded below:
At 10:48 AM 10/6/2003, you wrote:
Well, I'm going to wade in here and say that I disagree!
In my view, the intermediate wraps were not designed to stiffen the rod in the absence of heat treating.
I believe that the reason for the intermediate wraps was twofold:-
1) The glues used were likely animal based and not as good as post war or today's modern two-part glues. The intermediate wraps contributed to keeping the six strips together.
Depends on your definition of good. The strength of the animal glues is really pretty good, their biggest downfall is the susceptibility to moisture, and the subsequent loss of holding power when the moisture crept into the glue joints. Similar in concept to your normal white glues. They have a pretty good bond, most times the substrate will fracture before the flue joint gives way. However, using white glue around moisture, when not sealed, will cause the bond to eventually fail. There were plenty of old rods built using the animal glues that didn't have the intermediate wraps, however they tended to have very slow actions, just what you needed for wet fly fishing. As dry flies were introduced and started becoming the rage, they had to figure out some way to stiffen the action of the rods, and prior to true heat treating, the intermediates were used.
2) Aesthetic reasons. With the improvement of glues, the intermediate wraps were no longer required, but continued for several years for aesthetic reasons, as they were expected.
The intermediate wraps started going away both because of the improvements in the adhesives, and the introduction of heat treating.
I further believe that some form of heat treating has been going on for a long time, and is not recent. The application of heat is used to straighten the strips.
Using heat to straighten strips is not the same as heat treating. Heat treating, and I can't remember for sure who started it (either Payne or Leonard) wasn't done until the early 20th century. Prior to that, the strips were either split or sawed, straightened, planed or beveled to their final dimensions, then glued up. I use heat to press and straighten nodes, and bends and kinks, but that isn't true heat treating. My heat treating regimen for strips is a half an hour at 350 degrees F, followed by an hour at 225 degrees F to really dry out the cane. These temps are applied to the entire strip, whereas in straightening, the heat is applied locally to the places that need to be straightened or pressed.
My 2 cent's worth............. Neville Gosling, Greater Vancouver,B.C. Canada.
Mark
