Bamboo Tips - Tips Area
Blank Info - Straightening - Aging

< Home < Tips Area < Blank Info < Straightening < Aging

Something I've been noticing and a rodmaking buddy of mine is also noticing that after making a new rod and doing your straightening you can continue to get sets in the tip that over time will stop coming back once the rod has 'stabilized'. Are we doing something wrong, is this something you've seen yourself? Could something like this be why the rodmakers of old let glued up sections sit for a while, before finishing them out?  (Bill Walters)

There's a secret to this I've never read or heard about, and pardon me if I don't share it because developing it is a dear and distinguishing thing.

But I'll provide a clue or two.

Back in my beginning, I asked Andre Puyans what was the danger of this. To my consternation, he replied basically that if I did things right, it wouldn't happen.

The main answer, I found, had to do with preparing for a subsequent phase of completion. Of course, you have to get everything straight, dry, stable, and inert. Those objects must be observed to every practical degree in all phases, for a rod to ever get to inert and stable.

Moreso than adding finish to a rod then, you can lock straight in. That's the clearest clue I'll provide. Of course, severe effects such as bending a rod in a circle might exceed cane's capacity to return to its original, neutralized, straight condition -- but that will only occur if we exceed permissible unit stress by misuse. I have rods in cases, upright and horizontal, that haven't been moved for 20 years, and in fact are not stored in a perfectly straight condition; and they're as straight as ever.  (Mike Montagne)