It all starts with a 12 foot culm of bamboo
Bamboo Rod Build, Part XII, Blank Sanding
Our glued and bound sections have been in the drying cabinet for 24 hours to allow for proper curing. Now it time to remove the cotton binding and sand our sections to remove surface glue and the bamboo enamel. For me, this piece of the puzzle is as close as it comes to that excitment we all felt as a kid unwrapping a present at Christmas. Soon this mess of bamboo, cotton string, and glue will look like a fly rod. The grain or "power fibers" will be exposed and the beauty of the cane will be revealed. I'll also be able to check my measurements for accuracy.
Care must be taken (read "leather gloves should be worn"; do as I say, not as I do) when removing the binding string because the dried glue is extremely sharp. Using a block plane, I cut the half-hitch knots from the tip of my section:
The binding then unravels quite easily:
One of the hallmarks of a well-made cane rod is well defined and sharp (as opposed to round) edges. To achieve this look, I remove the felt padding from my sanding block. Starting with 220 grit sand paper, I work each flat until the enamel is removed. At this point in the process the partially sanded enamel takes on a "purplish haze", which is often referred to by makers as "hazing". The usually takes about 10-15 passes on each area of the flat to remove the 0.002" deep enamel. Sandpaper is changed often, on the butt section that means after every flat is sanded. It's important not to sand into the precious power fibers any more than absolutely necessary to remove all enamel.:
This process is followed by a few passes with 400 grit sand paper and finally a few passes with 0000 steel wool to finish the blank.
I can now check the flat to flat measurements at each station to see how close we came to the original taper. If we did things right, these flat to flat measurements should easily be +/- 0.002" of the original taper:
The sections are then closely inspected, preferably in daylight, to find any remnants of the the enamel that needs to be sanded. Everything looks good, so far. I can already tell this rod is going to be something truly special.
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Eat Sleep Fly Fish