Not much progress to report on the rod this week because I just got back from a week in the wilds of western North Carolina. I fished a little bit while I was down there but many of the streams I saw were low and warm and the ones that weren’t low turned in to a river of clay-colored slurry as soon as anyone even mentioned rain. I realized how spoiled I am with the Gunpowder River just a 30 minute drive from my house in Baltimore City. Even after a heavy rain the upper river is never more than slightly off-color and the cold water has held out year after year. What a incredible resource this river is! Well, enough about all that.
I mentioned in my last post that I’d talk about some of the tools bamboo rod makers use. So far the pictures have shown my Milwaukee heat gun and wood worker’s vise. Pretty boring stuff. This week we’ll check out my router powered beveler. This is a serious tool! It’s a home made version of a beveler designed by another rod maker named named Al Medved. As you can tell from the pictures the router mounts horizontally and the bamboo is fed through an adjustable wooden bed that sits below the blade. The bed holds the bamboo at the right angle as it goes through the beveler.
Still straightening,
Bill