Early B James Avocet Restoration

[Wallys-Cast]

A nice find Neil and a nice save too, well done. Looking forward to seeing it progress.

Wal.

[Wagtail]

Lovely work Neil

[Mick]

Absolutely amazing job! Thank you for sharing your expertise with us. Oh how I wish I could do that kind of intricate engineering.

[Aquaerial]

Bunco Neil, fabulous post and restoration story...you are now officially a lost cause but what a place to be lost! Have fun...

[Bob Brookes]

Oh dear, I've just dribbled all over my keyboard.

Fantastic work Neil.

[AshbyCut]

As an aged relation used to say ... "Splendiferous !!!"

[Northern_Nomad]

Preparation Stage

OK next stage of the build. Thanks to all for their kind comments and requests to see the finished rod, so here we go with the next phase. It’s a bit long winded to start with as I am trying to explain some of the thought process behind the rebuild and give as much background information as possible. Hopefully you will find it interesting and not too train spotty.

This part of the build was meant to be the ‘cosmetics’. However as stated in the part about the handle restoration I was a bit ambiguous about the top of the handle, as it had groove in it and some repair that was less than perfect. At this stage the bottom section was whipped which would mean removing all the whipping including inters to remove the collar and fit the replacement shives, plus I was very nervous about using a heat gun on 70 year old piece of whole cane to get the collar off. Eventually I bit the bullet as I had a reason to remove all the whipping anyway ( more of later) and I subsequently removed the collar and damaged shives and reshaped and re-fitted the collar after polishing it. I’ve also included a pic of the original reel bands which were treated to remove the corrosion that had eaten into the cork handle as described in part one.


Collar removed with a heat gun -scary!


2 shives removed


Shives replaced, ready for sanding and shaping


Reel bands cleaned up


Dilemma no 3

This was what whipping to go for. I wanted the rod to be returned to its original state and it came with white/black jasper silk thread. This was important as it denoted (along with other evidence) the rod to be a version one Avocet. Around this time I had managed to get in contact with John Olliff-Cooper the angling writer who used to run the now defunct In The Net website and was an expert on these rods. After many weeks of dead ends trying to find him I saw an article in Fallon’s Angler about Garrett Fallon having a days fishing with John and dropped Garrett a mail asking if he would forward it on to John O C for me, realistically with not a lot of hope. To my surprise about 4 hours later in the early evening a mail dropped into my inbox from John and a lot of correspondence went to and fro as I picked his brains for his considerable knowledge of these rods. He very kindly gave me permission to reproduce anything I saw fit so I have lifted his version chart and pasted it below as a reference point for anyone who wishes to use it as I think the link I put up in part one is a bit broken.

Here is John version chart

Type 1: VERY RARE . Say, around 1950. Dark Southwell blanks. Modestly sized whole cane butt, giving quite a through action. 23” shive cork handle, tapered at the fore-end to a tapered aluminium shoulder collar, external taper on reel bands. Superb bought-in spiked stock ferrules, with brass female centering receivers for the spikes, and with thin silvered layer underneath. ‘Built to Endure’ diamond-shaped transfer over gold, with separate Avocet transfer over gold. White/grey jasper silk whips (possibly Pearsalls-made-thread) and intermediates (this looks yellow under aged varnish). Real agate low cradle butt ring, small graduated intermediate low bells rings, and real agate tip ring.

Type 2: VERY RARE. Possibly 1953. Dark Southwell blanks. Modestly sized whole cane butt, giving quite a through action. 23” shive cork handle, tapered at the fore-end to a tapered aluminium shoulder collar, external taper on reel bands. Superb bought-in spiked stock ferrules, with brass female centering receivers for the spikes, and with thin silvered layer underneath. Earliest B.James & Son script label - B. James, Ealing, Lond. Green silk whips and very graduated intermediates. Real agate low cradle butt ring, small graduated intermediate low bells rings, and real agate tip ring.

Type 3: Possibly 1954 –56/7. Dark Southwell blanks. Slightly larger sized whole cane butt, giving still quite a through action. 24” shive cork handle, with very small trumpet flare, and flat two shoulder aluminium shoulder collar, internal taper on reel bands. Specially made high quality un-spiked ferrules, with distinctive concave collar, and again with thin silvered layer underneath. B. James script label - B.James & Son, Ealing, London. Green (usually) silk whips and very graduated intermediates. Real agate low cradle butt ring, small graduated intermediate low bells rings, and real agate tip ring. Small nickel silver hook-keeper.

Type 4: From around 1956/7. Lighter coloured B.James blanks, with a slight increase in diameter (maybe to make up for the less steely cane resulting from lower bake temperatures). Slightly larger sized whole cane butt, giving quite a through action. The rods feels hevier overall, and slightly ‘soggy’ compared to the early Southwell versions (still very nice rods to use). 24” shive cork handle, with onion shaped bulge at fore-end, and small aluminium shoulder collar, internal taper on reel bands. Some variation in ferrules fitted, but they are un-spiked, and some still have the distinctive concave collar. There is no silver layer underneath. B. James script label - B.James & Son, London, England. Red (usually) silk whips and very close ungraduated intermediates. Agatine low cradle butt ring, small graduated intermediate low bells rings, and agatine tip ring. Small nickel silver hook-keeper. Some Avocets of this period are provided with high bells rings.

Type 5: As design four, with detail changes. Label reads B.James & Son, England. No hook keeper, and no shoulder collar.

Type 6: Split cane all through, and with high bells rings. An Avocet in name only. This is a notably excellent all-round strong rod, but it is so far from the original concept that it is hardly an Avocet. Nevertheless, a very fine rod which serves well for heavy float-fishing. To my mind, it somehow seems more appropriate for still-waters. The perfect tench rod. Brilliant lead rod when re-ringed with Low Bells rings.


Ok so as you can see by John’s chart the main difference between this rod and the second variant is mainly in the cosmetics in that the writing is on gold background ( in a different font it transpired) whereas the second version reverted to the font and style which we are all more familiar with, black writing directly on the blank with the gold background dispensed with. The whipping was now solid green and the spacing on the intermediates changed. The “Built to Endure” badge was also dropped. Subsequent 3rd versions stopped using the spigot ferrules and the handle changed shape.

So whipping was to be white/black jasper silk. This in time would age through various shades as per the original. Rings would be white agate. Both these selections would bring with them a lot of problems. To be honest my thought initially were if I was going to rewhip a rod like this I would probably would have opted for dark green firstly and burgundy red as a second choice. White/black Jasper would not be a starting choice. However as the build progressed I found that this was an excellent choice because as well as being accurate it also stands out against the dark built cane Southwell blanks. I began to like it more and more although it brought its own unique problems.

So the first hurdle to overcome was to source all the bits I needed. I started looking around for jasper silk thread and a butt ring of the correct type as it transpired the butt ring on the rod wasn’t the original. I had noticed there was a bit of newer whipping around part of the butt section and at some stage a stand off ring with a clear centre had been re-fitted rather than the original ¾ “ open bridge low rider agate ring. So I needed to find a new ring. I scoured the tinternet thingy and contact all the suppliers I could think of , plus a few I got from looking at threads on here. Some of the replies are listed below;

“No chance”

“I wish”

“Ha ha ha”

“Niet!”

“Haven’t seen one in years, you’d be better off forgetting it and going to the pub!”

Undeterred I asked on here as a long shot. No rings were forthcoming, however Martin ( forum member Deubel) posted a link to a chap in Poland who made rings. His company name is Perfect and his name was Ernest Oczos. I dropped him a mail using Google translater to put it into Polish and was surprised when the reply came within a couple of hours in perfect English. ( I was to learn that Ernest is always prompt with mails and his written English is far better than some Britons I’ve dealt with) Ernest didn’t do the size of ring I wanted with the type of insert I needed but he bent over backwards sending pictures different types which he thought may fit the bill. In the end he asked his suppliers to make a one off centre for me which he then incorporated into the correct type ring (we even had a conversation as to how high the ring stood off the blank discussing the difference between 4mm and 6mm which I eventually went for). This was delivered to me and it arrived safely, well packed and is absolutely superb. The workmanship is first class. The picture really doesn’t do it justice. It went on the rod without any need for filing the foot profile and the whipping just flowed over it.


The finished ring specially made to order


Superb workmanship - no need for any foot prepping on this.

In an era when vintage supplies are getting harder to find its good to know that some new outlets are opening. I think Ernest will be of great value to the traditionalist angler. Here’s a link, it’s been put on here before but I would recommend having a look, well worth it.

http://perfect-europe.com/

Next was the correct thread to obtain. This was nearly as difficult as the ring. I couldn’t find any initially, then found a thread which mentioned that Pro Wrap do a black/white jasper nylon thread which I duly sourced and bought 200mtrs. As it turned out it was totally unsuitable. I now know about 100 times more about jasper thread than when I started this, and a lot of it is down to the twist and the two colour combination ratio in the make-up. Unfortunately the Pro-Wrap is Black/Grey – ie about 75% of the colour is black with the remainder grey. Once on the rod it’s a bit dark but when sealed and varnished despite all the usual tricks with sealing agents once it’s even slightly darkened it is far too dark and looks wrong. The decision to strip it all off and start again led to the decision to remove the handle collar and re-do the handle at the same time. I scoured tinterweb thingy again and couldn’t find a white/black combo of about 50/50 or even 60/40 in favour of white. I tried the well known auction site in its USA variant. On there occasionally large spools of the correct stuff came up but our colonial cousins are not always aware that there is a world outside the USA and don’t ship internationally. It’s very, very frustrating. Eventually purely by accident whilst looking for a hook keeper I found one, and lo and behold in the picture, next to it was a spool of exactly the thread I was after. On my initial searches I had looked for “Olivers of Knebworth” didn’t get a hit so moved on to the next one on the list. Of course Olivers of Knebworth is no more – it’s now Olivers Rods and run by Peter Johnson
In hope I contacted him asking if he had the spools in the picture in sufficient quantity to totally rewhip an 11 foot rod with 189 intermediates and enough left over for future repairs. He answered in the affirmative – result.



Elephant silk Jasper


Difference between Pro Wrap nylon and Elephant silk. Once treated it's nearly all black.

Whilst all this toing and froing for thread and rings was going on I got on with any other bits I could.

The ferrules were in a messy cosmetic stage. Someone in the past had painted them in a gold colour and it’s fair to say his enthusiasm probably far outstripped his capabilities. As per the previous post I had made new male counter ferrules and kept the original female ferrules and these were the ones I was working on


Ferrules had been painted


An old ferrule taped into the ferrule to be dipped for grip.


Blued, ready for varnishing


I also blued the knuckles of the male counter ferrules as per the usual style. Once the blueing was done I gave all treated surfaces 3 coats of satin matt tough floor varnish to protect them.

I also spent a full day on making something for the rod which would transform it, but I will save that for the next instalment.

So there we are. The rod is prepped for whipping, the thread and rings are ready to go

Thanks for looking

[Barbulus]

I would normally say that nothing would surprise me Neil with your enterprise, determination and craftsmanship but, in this restoration, you have surpassed your always high standards and I read the post with admiration and envy. The consolation is that I think I will get to see the finished rod later this year........fantastic !

[CrayCane]

Given your attention to detail so far and the work you've done I'm sure the finished rod will be superb
Pete

[Paul D]

Marvellous work Neil, that is looking wonderful, the chap making rings has a mouth watering website.