Bamboo Tips - Contributors
Paul, Frank

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I have been on Rodmakers for quite a while. I am a 71 year old retired professor of mechanical engineering. I taught automation, robotics, manufacturing, controls and dynamic systems in my academic career which included Lehigh, Carnegie-Mellon, and Clemson Universities over 39 years. I have been retired for 6 years. I am originally from Northcentral Pennsylvania where I have a summer cottage in Waterville, PA and live permanently in Seneca/Clemson, SC.  I have two grown sons, and four grandchildren. I started fishing for trout and bass in PA with my father when I was 9 or 10; I grew up in Jersey Shore, PA which is at the gateway to the Pine Creek Valley and fished all the streams you might see on a map in that area with my father. I taught myself to tie flies at the age of 12 and had the opportunity to go to E.Hille's when I was young and get fly tying materials for tying efforts. I sold some flies in my teenage years, but then went on to college at Penn State. I started fishing with a nice South Bend 7' two piece rod which no longer exists. I have worked in the aircraft industry, and after getting my PhD I began an academic teaching career in 1964, began to teach my sons to trout fish, and started to make glass and carbon fiber rods for myself from blanks. I did this until about 1995 when I decided to refinish some bamboo rods and then got into making bamboo rods from scratch to keep me busy during retirement. Harry Boyd and Ray Gould were helpful along with the Book, and other books from well recognized rodmakers. I had the opportunity to interact with George Mauer for a few years before he passed round the bend a year of so ago during summers at our cottage in PA. Since I am a mechanical engineering, the bamboo rod manufacturing process was not difficult to learn and develop. I also began when I was teaching to do research on fly rod dynamics and casting behavior. I have supervised 3 master theses on these topics and have conducted physical and computer simulated research with my students and learned a lot about how flyrods behave and can be designed. I now design or modify rod tapers for behavior I like using Hexrod or Al Bauldaski's RodDesign103 based on the stress curves. I also worked with students on a design project to design and make a heat treating oven with uniform heat treating capability. I make 4 or 5 bamboo rods each each year, usually making a new or modified taper for experimental purposes. I am now making a Cross Sylph 7' taper and restoring a Granger Special 3 piece.