REPLIES TO RICHARD WALKER'S 1953 LETTER

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John Harding
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REPLIES TO RICHARD WALKER'S 1953 LETTER

Post by John Harding »

Following my original post of a letter from Dick Walker that appeared in the Fishing Gazette on the 3rd of January 1953, firstly thanks for the interest and the comments. Nobby in his comments said that it would be interesting to know who Mr.R. Hill was, and indeed it would be, unfortunately I have looked through the issues that were in the bundle I purchased and sadly the one with his letter in is not there, I may have it in another pile I have stored away somewhere. However in the issue three weeks later, January 24th 1953, there are two responses to Dick Walker's letter, the first from :-
Mr. C.Hewitt of W. Martin James Ltd and the second from Captain T. B. Thomas (Terry Thomas I believe) of Milward's Fishing Tackle Ltd.

I will retype the letters for those who are unable to zoom in on the originals, Terry Thomas's letter is quite a long one !

Image


"The Relative Merits of Cane, Glass and Steel Rods"

Dear Sir,---I have always read with interest the letters by Richard Walker and have just gone through his latest in your January 3rd issue.

In his letter he writes "The vast majority of rod makers are still using animal glue to cement the sections and are still using unbaked bamboo." This company has never used an unbaked cane in all its existence and has not used animal glue since 1939.

To be fair to other makers in Redditch, I believe that this applies to them also.

Yours faithfully,
C.Hewitt
(p.p. W. Martin James, Ltd)

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Dear Sir,-----I have read with some interest the various letters on this subject, and particularly the, as usual, excellent letter from Richard Waler, in your isue of January 3.

As I spend three months of each year in North America, where glass rod manufacture is still well in advance of this country, I have had perhaps more experience of these rods than most people here, and have been fortunate enough to have tried rods by most of the best known and many of the lesser known makers of the U.S.A., as well as visisting some of their factories, and discussing the advangates and disadvantages of glass with many Canadian and U.S. tackle experts. By experts I would stress I mean mostly people who make rods, or who are engaged in buying and selling them, for I agree with Mr. Walker that most anglers know little about the various factors which determine whether a fishing rod is good or bad.

I do not intend to deal with steel, for although I do not personally like these rods, I do not consider that I have the necessary experience and knowledge to give an opinion. It is true, however, that the glass rod has killed the steel rod in the U.S.A.

What, therefore, are the advantages and disadvantages of glass rods as opposed to cane rods ?

Both are fibrous, but whilst glass fibres are all of equal strength, cane fibres vary, even in the same rod. I do not agree with Mr. Walker as regards "setting" a glass rod. I do not know which rods he has tried, but he can take it from me that it is impossible to "set" the latest U.S. rods. I have seen them put to all sorts of mechanical flexing tests, in which they have suffered more strain and for longer periods than they would ever suffer in a lifetime's fishing, yet within a half an hour they were as straight as ever again. This is due to the equality of fibre, which of course also makes glass a much more consistent material than cane.

Glass fibre rods are also stronger (i.e., harder to break) than cane. To begin with some U. S. makers proclaimed their glass rods as unbreakable and gave almost unlimited guarantees and demonstrated them in the absurd manner which Mr. Walker so rightly condemns. They soon found, however, that these rods can be broken, although it requires more abuse than to break a cane rod. When a glass rod breaks, it breaks off clean at one point, due again to the equal strength of the fibres. A cane rod splinters along its length because some fibres are stronger than others.

Glass rods are unaffected by salt water, and in the lst two years the ill-effects of moisture and temperature have been completely overcome on the better makes.

The main disadvantage of glass as a material is its high specific gravity which forces rods above 7ft maximum to be made in hollow construction. Mr. Walker's description of a completely hollow rod under stress is excellent, but he leaves out the most important result of this wall distortion, for besides the gradual lessening of power as the rod bends, a most unpleasant kick is felt, due to this distortion, which takes all the "sweetness" out of a fly rod and, to a lesser degree, a spinning rod.

Some weeks ago I was shown a U.S. glass fly rod, in Chicago, by one of the most knowledgeable fishermen I have ever met. We agreed, on handling it, that it was the nearest to a split cane rod that either of us had seen, and I bought one to bring back for factory examination. Neither of us had tried this rod with reel and line on, and I was astonished when I took it out on our testing pool here to find that it could not cast more than 8yd. or 9yd of line. With more than this modest amount of line in the air, the action lost all its power and was unable to drive the line forward or back. This was due to over-thin walls which completely lost all power after a certain degree of flex.

To the reader who asks how we could think it was a good rod without trying it with reel and line, I would point out that we both handle large quantities of rods every year, and had it been a split cane rod we would not have found ourselves in error.

Another snag I have found with hollow glass rods is their wind resistance. They are usually slightly lighter than the same length rod in solid cane, and at the same time they are considerably thicker throughout. I fished the whole of last season with a 9ft, 4 1/2 oz. fly rod made by a little known Californian glass rod firm, who pay such attention to their wall thicknesses that the disadvantages previously mentioned are to some extent overcome. On a calm day it was quite pleasant to use, but in anything approaching a wind it was almost blown out of my hand and was most tiring to use.

The greatest disadvantage of the hollow glass rod, however, is that they are all (or all I have seen) straight taper rods and they therefore lack the subtilty of taper of a properly stepped split cane rod. To produce hollow glass rods with accurate stepping tapers is going to be a very difficult job indeed : to produce such a rod with compound tapers is virtually an impossibility. They are, therefore, just "rods," strong, durable, but with no individuality or character.

The logical conclusion to all this is proved by the situation in the U.S.A. The short plug-casting rod in solid glass has swept that market. These are excellent rods, on which any taper can be produced, and on which the extra weight is not of great importance.

For various types of sea fishing the hollow glass rod has had considerable success because of its durability, although some surf casters complain it lacks power.

Large quantities of fly and threadline rods have been sold, backed, of course, by intensive advertising. Again their durability makes them good "knock about" rods, but here definitely the more discerning fisherman is finding after trial that the glass rod has not the pleasant feeling of a split cane rod, even if he does not know why, and many people expect a swing back to cane, though by no means a total one for these types of fishing. It is of interest that the best Steelhead fishermen in British Columbia, when bait fishisng, use split cane because of its greater sensitivity. These anglers campare in skill with our best up-stream wormers. Mr. Thompson, writing from the U.S.A. in the same issue as Mr. Waler, is of this opinon, and I think he is one of many,

I have some independent figures on glass rods which I think will interest Mr. Walker, but I am writing to him privately about this.

With my best wishes for the New Year.
Yours fiathfully,
Captain T. B. Thomas.
(Milward's Fishing Tackle, Ltd)
Redditch.

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As with the Dick Walerk letter I hope these two responses are of interest.


Regards,
John

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Nigel Rainton
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Re: REPLIES TO RICHARD WALKER'S 1953 LETTER

Post by Nigel Rainton »

He was wrong about compound tapers but correct about a return to cane rods.

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