The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I'd suggest sending Nobby a PM - not only is he a Milwards addict, but he's done a lot of experimenting on heat-treating cane, and his archive here and on Pure Piscator/Secret Swim and TPBTW will certainly have good gen, and he will know better than most which of his posts are going to be most help to you.

Proceed with caution - Milwards didn't do "entry level", and unless a previous owner really wrecked it, you could have a very nice rod there.

If the actual cane strips are twisted, but the tip has a fast recovery time from being bent - i.e. the power fibres aren't strained - and the glue is still sound, then I should have thought gentle heat and untwisting should do the job. Or you could try just fishing a stretch with the opposite flow and see if time reverses the set... you have one week!

Measure the tip's tapers and ferrule diameter and take a close look at those of any ancient fly-rods you pass - you may be able to knock up a useable spare tip with a bit of judicious splicing!

It's a funny one. It doesn't appear to be twisted until it is bent. And then you feel it kick and turn. I'll ask Nobby for his advice too when I get home.

It does sem a nice rod, but as it was cheap I will not be too upset if I get it all wrong. Another rod that will teach me how to do something new while I restore it. Always learning in this game.

Sounds like delamination to me MD. I had a an Octofloat tip like that..Took some scrutiny to find the delamination, but it was there.

It's hard to access what is wrong with a rod if you aren't looking down the blank for yourself, but it's not uncommon to look down one and see a great spiral of small bends in the cane. The human eye is pretty good at sighting down something and detecting the smallest of bends.
I've just done some new ferrules for a a TFFer and I thought I might straighten the rod whilst I was about it and it really was bent all over the place.

I just straightened each bend as I spotted it and eventually the rod came out straight again, but in the beginning you think you might never get there. Quite why it should 'kick' in your hand when bent is a little harder to guess at, but if you straighten it out you might get some idea what is going on here.

Incidentally, the rod I just did,... I expected to 'turn' the tip and middle sections, but in the end it was very clear that the tip was better the same way up again, it had quite a sag when 'turned', presumable just a bias in the strength of the cane. But it was definitely straighter with the middle turned, so that's how it was left.


The butt section was fine, but you can with patience even straighten one of them with a night light candle. I know others use heat guns and the like but I find cane is such a poor conductor of heat that it takes a fair old time to get the cane 'plastic' and ready to bend. With more heat than that from a night light I feel I might burn the outer cane before I got the inner cane hot enough.

And I don't have a heat gun anyway.........

I did idly wonder about setting myself up one time with a table at a tackle fair with just a night light candle, but I bet there'd be all sorts of fire regulation issues I'd be falling foul of.........

If it's something you're unsure of just practice on some BBQ skewers first....you can put about a 35 degree bend in one of them before the fibres break! But you'll learn to feel the cane go plastic long before then.

Dear MD,

Before you enter into the realms of techno corner occupied by St Nobby & co. have a close look at the tip under a magnifying glass to see exactly where the twists in the cane are and mark them with wipeable felt tip pen. This makes life a lot easier later on when you are roasting your tip...so to speak!

Also just to make sure, with this close up investigation, something very simple/obvious like the rings being put on the tip in the wrong place/wrong way round etc has not been done by some hamfist in the past.

Always, but always check the obvious before you make things potentially worse

Sorry if this teaching yer Grandmother to suck eggs but sometimes it is very easy to overthink a perceived problem.

Let us know how it goes with this one, as if it is a true Milwards rod it will make a truly great user.

Good luck.

As ever,.....


Mole Power!!!

salmon fly rod?

I wouldn't worry about the reel bands ,I have a couple sets taken off coarse rods ,the crimped one will be a tighter fit than the other one ,not the best with modern small feeted reels ,designed for older fat footed reels .i'm actually desided too use a set of these bands on my next build with the matching coller and buttcap .