The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Hello And Here Goes... My First Cast Into The Race,

This is my Allcocks rod that I mainly used for course, and you will see in the photos that it is in a bit of a state. It was fundamentally challenged condition wise when my uncle handed it to me at the age of fifteen, but by-and-large it’s still mostly there. You will also note that the rod’s identity decal is all but gone. However, due to this excellent site’s clientele and their rigorous search for detail, I am fairly sure that I have identified it.

As seen the handle is wood not cork, the primary section/s are whole flamed cane, and the intermediate and tips are greenheart. So if you study the decal you will see that the edge of the name’s first letter is curved, possibly the letter ‘S’. Using Mark’s list I pinned it down to a ‘Slapton’ spinner. If anyone has other ideas I would dearly like to hear from you.

At present settling on a model and type is a long way off, albeit I have designed a decal for when the time comes. My intention is to carefully work round the remains of the old one underneath the rod and put the new one topside prior to the last varnish coat.

So pointers please for suitable consumables; lashing silk, varnish type, etc.. The rest is elbow grease.

Cheers,
Dave
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Sorry for the delay but we have been away. However, I have made a start on the Allcocks’ rod.

This rod I intend to rebuild sympathetically as a keepsake and not to use. I want to keep its patina and not make it look shop-fresh, and not polish the brass ferules but keep the in their tarnished state. Also the cane and greenheart not done in a treacly, high gloss finish. Bearing in mind that in the days when this rod was built, Polyurethane was a pretentious parrot’s name. (“I’m a pretty boy then”!). So I will be looking into traditional coatings; Danish or Tung oil perhaps.

The rod comes with two tips. The finer of the two, as can be viewed in photo (1), has snapped between the penultimate and tip line guides. To repair I used “Gorilla Glue”, (photo 2). This particular type is set off by damping it so I used a spray bottle I found in the greenhouse, which my wife later informed me had a diluted tomato fertiliser in it. So I wait with baited breath to see what greenheart foliage looks like. The beauty of this glue is that it is flexible and that it foams up, thus filling any tiny gaps caused by scraping the two surfaces clean, (photos 3 to 7).

The next step was to bind over the repair and reattach the rings. So this morning I knocked up a powered contrivance to help my arthritic hands to wind the thread accurately, (photos 8 & 9). Deciding that a hand operated unit would be tricky for me and an electric motor too complicated, I went for an old wind-up motor removed from a Decca, trench type gramophone, (photos 10 & 11), which I re motored a couple of months ago.

The drive from the spindle to the rod is via a conveniently size ‘O’ ring. The bolt that the other size rings are hanging from is set to adjust the motor’s speed and the lever is the brake. The two wheels, (photo 9), are from an old toy motorbike and helps reduce friction; the other end is lined with felt. As can be seen, it worked quite well.

Cheers For Now,
Dave :o)

Dave,

I like your style sir
It reminds me of my Naval days....make do and mend

John

I love your motorized contrivance. Tinkering at its best.

I've only just found this thread. I hope the glue holds! Interesting rod, everything about it screams pre-War, but we all thought the gold oval with red writing transfer was post-War.

Good luck with your endeavours Sir