The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

..."we take great pride in the dressing of our rods. We use very fine grade silk for the intermediate whippings. You will not be able to see the start or tying-off of each individual whipping."

I have a General Float Rod here that I need to strip and re-build and my question is, how did they get the whippings so that you cannot see the tying off? It really does seem to be the case, so can someone share that trick of the trade with me if you know?

I do so want to make this the perfect rod with all others before just being practice! Everything I have tried in the past, you can still make out the start and tying-off of my whippings!

Many thanks.

I have asked Ted about intermediate whippings some time ago, his answer:

About the half inch whippings. I do my best to explain how
we do them:
First have a piece of whipping thread about 90/100 cm long

We then put the end of the thread in our mouth to wet it a little
(the saliva from our mouth helps to stick the thread to the blank)

We then whip 4 turns to trap the start

We then clamp the blank under our arm to hold it, you then
whip over your finger 2 x (look at photo p.10 top right hand corner)
and then pass the end through the gap towards top of rod. See pic
top left hand side P.10.
You carefully pull tight and then peel back thread. Doing this method
you peel back thread to get even thicknesses with 1/2" whipps.
We then apply a little dope (glue) to whipping

That is wonderful, many thanks. It all sounds a little complicated but it does explain what is going on in the pictures!

I will give that a try and see what happens.

Have a look at this method, I used this and it really does work superbly Reedling ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMPSo-Du ... e=youtu.be

Thank-you Reedling, that's an interesting little trick. Will give it a try!

Here's one I done earlier (search forum for article 'scrape or strip' for further details). I coated the intermediate whips with shrinking dope before cutting the tag ends off to ensure they were nice and tight and would not undo before trimming. The dope dries really quickly so you can get on with job in hand. Hope this helps you in some small way. Reedling.

Wizard wheezes, chaps. I'll give them a go.

Ted Oliver also said: "We are unusual in so far as only men are entertained as rod whippers - girls can never bind rod rings on tight enough to pass my inspection."

Never one to be bound by political correctness, our Ted.

Troutbeck

I bought a rod kit off him a couple of years ago,I was warned that he could be a bit hard work.He let me (a total stranger) into his loverly house and garden,He showed me how to do them whippings but try as I might I could not remember how he done them,I thought he was a loverly bloke.

He spent ages helping me with advice by e-mail when I was building up a rod recently. Sold me some rod building parts at a knock-down price and put up with my endless questions about his days at Southwells too


Top feller and his wife, Tina, is just as charming.

I've bought some blanks (oh yes, unfortunately glass ) from Ted recently and we had an amiable e-mail exchange,
when the blanks arrived he had kindly joined one of his old catalogues
and here is page 10 mentioned by Stef


and

"...girls can never bind rod rings on tight enough to pass my inspection."

so it's rather a question of force and not of misogyny