Barder 25 year anniversary

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Macko
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Macko »

One thing about all the truly excellent rod makers mentioned, you've got to admire
their patience to spend 60 or 80 hours to make one rod, no matter how much they
love the work they produce. I know I wouldn't have the patience to do it.

Will there be others to replace these men when they decide to hang up their hand
planes and milling machines, I fear not.

ATB Macko

MHC

Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by MHC »

Good points Paul, you and I have chewed this one over once before I remember.

Milling the final angles does not make a better blank than hand planing, but it does save on time and tendons, if I were making rods to put food on the table then I would do the same. Hand planing can make very exacting final strips (as well).

I have calculated that from splitting to final tapering each of the twelve strips of a rod takes me about 3 hours to make (and I have been an enthusiast for 20 years) , splitting, straightening, rough planing, heating, final planing and tweaking as I go, totalling 36 hours just to make the glued up blank, funny thing is that I don't like any machines to speed up the process (not sure where 80 hours mentioned goes to..). With a well tuned plane and bamboo which is behaving itself, hand planing the final angles has to be the most enjoyable part of making rods, more traditional possibly than power tools...

Again, this should not be a contest. If Mr Barders rods fetch premium prices good luck to him.

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Beresford
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Beresford »

I don't think the use of power tools is any less traditional than hand planing. After all Barder bought his machine from one of the most respected rod builders of the 1950's and 60's.

I'm fairly sure Hardy's and Sharpes used machines to cut the taper in their factories. That is my point: those rods of days gone by that we still cherish were built en mass in factories and hundreds and in some cases thousands were made. Take say a Hardy MkIV carp rod – relatively rare today even though hundreds were made and as traditional as you like. Built of high quality materials and still a very desirable rod.

I simply don't get this notion that a hand planed rod is somehow more traditional or quintessentially better than one built using a machine to cut the taper. Rod fittings and reels are all built using lathes – another powered machine, where do you draw the line in the permissible use of machinery? The varnish and silk – bought in – will have been prepared by the manufacturer using at least one machine and so it goes on.
The Split Cane Splinter Group

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Nobby
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Nobby »

Actually, I think EB purchased planing jigs from Cliff Constable, rather than a milling machine. These would have been used for hand-planing the split cane, before EB changed over to milling.

I could be wrong on this and the jigs purchased were to hold the cane in the mill, of course. I can't recall where I heard this now, nor can I say how accurate it was.

MHC

Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by MHC »

With respect Beresford, hand made so called 'luxury goods' are often made with very great care and attention, by their nature are limited in quantity and can fetch a premium price due to the time taken to make them. Will a hand made rod, without the use of mechanical cutting tools be 'better' than a rod made using small wheel cutters to dimension the strips, probably not. Then again, an Intrepid Rimfly performs no better and no worse than a Hardy Perfect, they are just different.

My point was that for a couple of thousand pounds (or more) I would expect the rod that I buy to be a hand made item. In the world of reels that is known as 'bench made' meaning one craftman would create the reel of his (mostly) own design..from scratch -not buying in the components made by others, most importantly not using a CNC machine. Manual lathes are perfectly acceptable as there is no other way to round a reel, the reel maker winds the handle while the alloy is in the lathe,taking off amounts of metal according to pattern. He will measure as he goes, it is a manual excercise to all intents. John Milner is one such reel maker, Ted Godfrey another, even making each of the n/silver screws himself..

This is quite different from -presetting a cutting machine and feeding the rod strips through. There were bamboo rods for many years before the 50's and 60's, they were hand planed until (in the case of Hardys, until L R Hardy devised one of the first bamboo dimensioning cutting machines in the UK). The production rods of the 50's and 60's were ,apart from the top names (Hardy etc) often indifferently made and to a price. There was a relatively short period between production bamboo rods becoming widespread and the advent of glass which then sounded their eventual death knell.

That what examples remain, being now cherished and 'desirable' , fine. However according to auctioneer Neil Freeman, bamboo rods do not often become desirable enough to fetch very high prices, in (what he calls) the 'garden cane corner' of his Angling Auctions, in London. In the same vein, coarse anglers traditionally have never been as willing to pay premium prices for their tackle as their fly fishing counterparts. This is one of the reasons (possibly) that there are probably less than a handful of UK professional rodmakers. There are those who have the disposable income to buy a new bamboo (coarse) rod, but will often do so only if there is a 'name' attached so that the cost may be justified and if need be some of the outlay may be re-couped if re sold. The many older coarse rods that are purchased on line and refurbished for very little money also means that makers of new rods like myself (hobbyists or not) will not be much in demand. UK bamboo makers may eventually number only one or two at best for these reasons, it will be a case of use them or lose them.

I have made two or three coarse rods comissioned for the UK, the most that I could make for a MK IV was 350 pounds, which did not include customs or tax as I had a relative take it over. That is not much money for wrestling those big strips into submission, using a ton of quality cork, a big n/silver ferrrule and some rare new agate rings and also a custom rod bag. As I said, 34 hours went into making the hand made blank itself, as Paul wrote I do not have business overheads as such, but even so.. I have been asked by one on this forum to make them a rod, I politely declined reasoning that I could sell a dainty fly rod for double, on this side of the pond.

The last word I will leave to Richard James (Rod Maker) of Shilbottle, Alnwick who is (or was) a very traditional English rodmaker, I wonder if any on this forum have heard of him. With an excerpt from a lengthy letter that he wrote to me when I was just starting off, and an excerpt from Country Life Magazine 1992 about him. The last that I read (or heard) of Richard (Dickie) James was in an editorial in Trout & Salmon which mentioned that his workshop/shed had been set on fire by vandals and many/most of his treasured rod 'blocks' had been destroyed. The magazine was asking readers for contributions to a fund to help Mr James out.

Country Life.

'...Northumberland's Richard James is one such maker. He started making rods after leaving the army in the 1950's and has been working with cane ever since. He learned his craft at the rod-makers Walker Bramptons and has in his day, built rods for Hardys (until 1984) and Farlows. He is adament that cane rods should be made by hand with no machine cutting and maintains that nothing but nothing beats it as a material.
Mr James splits and dries the Tonkin(?ed) by hand and then rough and smooth planes the six strips which make up the hexagonal shape of the built cane rod against original tapered blocks of which he has many patterns of the past. Mr James insists that working by hand is the only way to get the feel for the taper of the cane necessary to produce the extraordinary fine and sensitive tips to the rods. He also makes his own ferrules, reel seats and rod stoppers. The finished products can be called reasonably priced masterpieces.'

From his letter to me ( I had asked about the '1882 method'....)

' 1882 method of cane building, basically means that the original Alnwick method was evolved by cabinate makers who worked in cane, originally Calcutta cane (as found in carpets) then in Tonkin poles about 1925. Cane in those days was worked ie split with the grain, straightened individually by heat so that a smoothing plane would follow the grain, and only the hard outer fibres utilised, every process carried out by hand and eye. The tapers for individual rods being cut on individual blocks ( formers) all patterns having it's own set of blocks. I posess over 300 blocks covering over 50 patterns, some blocks being the original 1882.
Under the Trade Description Act of the UK I am the only rod builder who can sign his rods Hand Built (underlined) which I do followed by the anglers name and signed by myself as maker. The modern machine made rods are simply ripped into strips on a circular saw (often across the grain, check it out) then the strips are run through a high speed miling machine which cuts the angle and taper having had first the outer fibre ground away to form the base of the triangle, once a mill machine is set up 50 to 100 rod blanks have to be run off to make the setting up pay, then they have to be finished (all the same length and taper) therefore high powered expensive advertising has to be entered into, to persuade (underlined) the angler that this is the rod he requires, all the cost being passed on.'

I include a copy R Jame's price list, click to enlarge. His were not boutique rods but were built as rods for anglers to fish and were priced accordingly.

Image
Last edited by MHC on Mon Nov 03, 2014 7:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Snape
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Snape »

It turns out that the Kennet Perfections Edward is making to mark the 25th anniversary will be 12 in number and eight are already sold.

He sent me this today.

Image
“Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers,” Herbert Hoover.
`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸ ><((((º>

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Loop Erimder
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Loop Erimder »

Damn it! 50% deposit, I can only do 10%
Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish

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Luga00
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Luga00 »

Sounds like the 'Kennet' rod will be an absolute cracker, Snape.
If I had the money, I would be on the list for sure.
I can't wait to see it.

If anyone on this board is one of the lucky few I hope there will be pics!!!! :Thumb:

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Paul F
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Paul F »

If I sell all my cane rods I might just raise the deposit! The trouble is I would not be able to fish until the rod arrived, oh and the small matter of another £1000 :Scared:

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Barbulus
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Re: Barder 25 year anniversary

Post by Barbulus »

Very thoughtful MHC. I have learnt much about the process there - Thank you for posting that. Much appreciated.

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