The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Thanks for that Chris, what lovely pictures and history behind them.

Superb images - thanks for sharing them Chris.

I found this picture of Dick Walker,in Angling magazine from 1964.No mention of him in caption.

Interesting to note the close intermediate whippings on Dick Walkers Mk III carp rod. In his book Rod Building for Amateurs 1952 he notes on page 81 :

'...With well-made split cane cemented with urea-formaldehyde, intermediate whippings are quite unnecessary, but on any rod a few neat rings of coloured silk just above the handle improve(s) the appearance.'

I find this interesting as Walker seemed to be eminetly practical and would not, I would have thought, be willing to spend several extra hours working on 'ornamental whippings' as were described in his book.

MHC wrote:Interesting to note the close intermediate whippings on Dick Walkers Mk III carp rod. In his book Rod Building for Amateurs 1952 he notes on page 81 :

'...With well-made split cane cemented with urea-formaldehyde, intermediate whippings are quite unnecessary, but on any rod a few neat rings of coloured silk just above the handle improve(s) the appearance.'

I find this interesting as Walker seemed to be eminetly practical and would not, I would have thought, be willing to spend several extra hours working on 'ornamental whippings' as were described in his book.

The MkIII carp rod (as pictured) was built by Dick in the winter of 1949 some years before he made the above statement. The number of hand-built Walker MkIV rods such as the ones he made for BB, Peter Thomas, Bernard Venables, Dick Kefford, etc made in 1951/2 all have no intermediate whippings. However, all the production B. James & Son MkIV Carp, MkIV Avon’s and S/U models starting with the very first ‘signature’ versions have intermediate whippings. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the insight. Another presumption may be that in the 40's urea formaldehyde glues were not in wide spread use and so hide type glues which were water soluble, needed more protection/holding together using intermediates.

Might it be that the Mk. III was double built and RW thought a such 'laminated'' rod might benefit from the extra protection?

Some great pics in this thread.

Those ones by Mike Wilson are how I knew him. I wonder if Mike would be kind enough to give us permission to use them on the website one day. Anyone here in touch with him please?

Hoping to add a lot more photos and content to the website. We're lucky there were some anglers interested enough in photography back then, to take the time to learn how to take some good shots considering how much effort was involved in the whole process. Compared to now, where pretty much everyone has a decent enough camera on their phone.

Not sure who took this one:

Mike is a member of this forum Robert. Why not send him a PM.

Mark wrote:Mike is a member of this forum Robert. Why not send him a PM.

Thanks, found his profile and have done so.