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< Home < Tips Area < Blank Info < Straightening < Post-Binding
Here is a tidbit for some of the new builders, find some 3/8" to 1/2" thick glass 12" wide for a large fish tank 4-6' long is the cat's patootie for straightening glued up blanks, you will have to get it from a aquarium builder, check the pet shops that carry lots of fish, should cost about $40-50 and it's money well spent. (John Pickard)
It takes some guys several tries, making the same mistakes over and over again to finally figure it out, well I'm one of them. A week or so ago I planed out and glued up a tip section. I rolled it around on the table while the URAC was still wet and straightened it and aligned the flats till it looked pretty good. Then I decided to hang it from the ceiling with a couple of pounds of weight just to make sure it was going to be straight. The next day I cut it down from the ceiling and scraped the glue off. It was then that I noticed that it was not only not straight but had a twist in it also. Well, not being too smart to begin with, I was baffled, and began planing out another as a replacement tip. Don't you know, I did exactly the same thing again, only this time I sighted down the hanging/wet strip and saw that the flats were no longer aligned and had developed a definite twist. QUESTION: How do you dry your sections straight?? (Don Greife) Just fire up your heat gun and straighten it out. If you figure out away to get perfect sections every time, be sure to let me know!! (John Channer) How are you attaching the weight/hanging end Don. I use a paper clip. Straighten except one of the "U" bends and cut both ends the same length so I have a "U" with long legs. I bend each leg out about 1/4 inch from the end so it doesn't slip out from under my thread. I then position it so that it straddles the end of the blank then I wrap it with quilting thread. I do the same thing with the other end. I check for straightness and straighten if necessary, hang it from the ceiling by one end and hang a weight through the paper clip "U" from the other end. If you don't get the load equally split on each side of the blank it will not hang straight. (Onis Cogburn)
Is it possible to get straight-as-an-arrow rod sections right out of the binder with no twist and no need for rolling? Is this asking for the impossible or does someone have a method they could share? I use a JD Wagner binder set up for power (cordless drill). (Derrick Diffenderfer) You asked . . . " Is this asking for the impossible or does someone have a method they could share?". Yes, it is nearly impossible to make a rod section come out perfectly straight. There are just too many variables when working with an individually unique culm along with all of its twists and turns and other variables involved, the choice of binder and string tension is just one of many variables. The best advice that I give you is to pay attention to everything that you do when making your rods, write down notes about relative humidity, temperatures and times and take pictures of what you observe and all that you do. In the long run you will be able to learn how to recognize potential problems associated with nodes and their grain direction etc. For additional help and information about rod making take a look at http://www.bamboorodmaking.com/html/tips.html, there is a vast wealth information there. I am not sure about how many rods I have made since I started in 1977, but be assured that very few did not require some correction after glue up. (Don Green) I saw some rig somewhere that used metal discs with various sizes of hex shaped holes in the center of them. You slid these on the blank instead of wrapping it. So you end up using a whole bunch of these discs on your blank and then it all slides into a metal frame or tube to keep it all perfectly straight. It looked like a lot of work putting on all these discs and it would probably be a whole lot harder getting them off when they’re covered in glue. I never found it that hard to straighten a rod anyway. (Ken Paterson) There are two keys to getting straight sections out of a binder (any style, Garrison, 4 string, Crompton, 2 string, whatever). 1. Support... not just something out there holding the rod from drooping, but something to support the rod on the SAME plane as the cradles where the binder drive cord rotates the rod. If you don't have everything on the same plane, and plenty of support, then you're beating your head against the wall. By "plenty" I mean if you're binding a section and your supports aren't at least half the length of the rod plus 6 inches, then you don't have enough. If you support less than half of the rod, then the weight of the part hanging off of the end of the supports put pressure on the rod. Personally, I don't see why everyone doesn't just put 48" long supports out there and not worry about it. It will save you a lot of headache in the long run. 2. Binder tuning. I don't know where the recommended binder weights and tension came from (yeah I do, but I will not contradict the bible of rodmaking... I may turn into a pillar of salt!) but the "accepted" weights and tensions are WAY too much. The more string and drive cord tension you have, the more you are likely to bow or kink the section as you bind it... and twists??? Whew, we all know about twists, don't we! And if anyone tells me they've made in excess of 40 or 50 rods and never gotten a twist out of a rod on a Garrison or Crompton (sp) style binder, then I'll stand right in the face and call them a... well, let's just say that after 22 years of using various binders, I'll doubt their word about it! Binder tension is crucial. Too much tension and you get more bows and twists, too little and you can't pull the sections together tightly. I use about 1/3rd or less the tension recommended in the Garrison book and it works great! Still, nothing is perfect, and you better be adept at straightening rods. If you've never gotten a crooked rod out of the binder, you WILL after you've made a few. All that being said, I just changed to one of Dennis Bertrams 2 string binders. No problem with my old JW binder, but Quadrates are hard to bind on a Garrison style binder, so the 2 string was the way to go for me. Oh, and the tension on the Bertram... 169 grams (the weight of a roll of pennies, if I recall). That's just a hair less than 6 ounces... quite a bit less than the Standard recommendations, isn't it? And if you say "Well that's a TWO string binder", then the opposing total tension would be slightly less than 12 ounces of total tension. Again, MUCH less than with a Garrison style binder... I have no financial interest in Bertram's Binder, by the way, but it's a great tool and I'd recommend it to anyone out to get away from Garrison style binders. (Bob Nunley) This reminds me of the time when I was getting started doing body work (and no it wasn't on a horse buggy!) There was a young man whom had started in the shop and he was quite full of himself.........."I've never gotten a run in a paint job he exclaimed, rather loudly!" There was a crusty old body man working over in the corner and he simply said "Well then, I see you haven't painted very many cars!" If you read about a problem you haven't experienced yet, keep building ........ you will. About the tuning your equipment ............. I remember talking to Charlie Jenkins about milling machines, binders etc. "To make a machine that doesn't require some degree of skill to operate would take a ton of money he said" I really agree with that statement. Now I have never gotten a twist on a rod, so my guess is that Bob is gonna call me ........ 'good rod maker???' (Joe Arguello) Just a general add-on comment, I think a a fundamental flaw of the garrison binder is the drive wheel and it’s over. It automatically causes different tensions on either side of the drive cord since the drive belt is not symmetric (learned this from simple pulley arrangement analyses in my statics engineering course). Different tensions in the drive cord causes twist. My binder has no handle/pulley, so the binding cord hangs symmetrically. Tension is the same going in as going out. I just pull the string with my hand it works fine. I never get twists because of this symmetric geometry - at least that's what I attribute it to, and I'm not going to build another with a handle to see if it causes twist. I agree with Bob on the lighter weights I use 10 oz. on the tips 14-16 oz. on the butts and moderate string tension. I don't get glue lines or delaminations with the lighter weight. (John Rupp) I agree with everything Bob just said. I use a four string binder with the tension set at 2 ounces per string and in/out chutes four feet long. While I get pretty straight bundles, they are never perfect. With the lighter tension all you have to do is look at it you get sweeps in your bundle. So for me the key is to get the bundle straight in the string before the glue sets and that means hanging in the free state. I've tried a lot of different ways of holding a bundle straight during curing. Some help but none have ever given me a straight bundle if wasn't already straight. When you bind a set of strips and you have a sweep or a kink in the bundle and then hang a weight on it or tension it some other way or clamp it somehow to a straight edge you wind up putting uneven tension and/or compression in the individual strips. The glue sets up and those uneven tensions still exist and when you release the bundle from its constraints, it just springs back to where it had been or close to it. If it's straight in the free state it will be straight when you take it out of the string. (Al Baldauski) I have built my own 2-string binder with the continuous belt. It's driven by my little drill press through the business end of an old burnt out 3/8" drill motor. I just slide it up against my drill press and stick the protruding shaft into the chuck. Running the drill press at 1700 gives me the speed I want for the binder but I have the option of running it faster or slower by changing the drill press speed. Works great for me and I don't think I could improve on it except by making it a 4-string, which I don't feel is necessary. I tried using sewing machine motors with the foot pedal but they don't have the power needed to run smoothly. Any new guys who want details on this binder, please contact me offline and I'll send a picture or two. Proof that it can be put together for 5 bucks if you have the drill press. As for getting straight rod sections out of it, who cares? I roll mine on a flat surface immediately out of the binder anyway. I sort of thought everybody did! The only thing to worry about when doing that is time the glue will allow you. (Don Ginter) Almost all binders out there are variations of something that's been around for a long time. Two string and four string binders are nothing new... Was it Divine that used a 4 string, or Dickerson... can't remember, but it's in one of those books in the living room, made from the differential of a Model A Ford. As far as who names them, or puts their name on them, I don't care what they do or what they credit themselves for. I look at it like this. IIRC, the original automobile was a Stanley Steamer. Ford improved on the Stanley design (internal combustion engine instead of steam) and called his FORD, then along came Chevrolet, Dodge, etc., etc., etc. Everything was based on the Stanley, but the guys that did improvements didn't have to call their machines "Stanley Improved", they could call it by their own names. Same, I feel, with the binder guys. They made improvements, they deserve the credit. Don, I'm with you, I roll all of my blanks out on a piece of granite, but I still want them as straight as I can get them out of the binder. Less trouble, less hassle, and a lot easier to roll out completely straight if they're pretty close to begin with. (Bob Nunley)
I glued and bound two rods last spring and one of them I found it difficult to finish because of the curves in places in both sections of the rod. I really hate to spend any more time on this blank because of the imperfections. My question is this: How bad does a rod with bends in it cast? The bends in this blank are not too bad just enough to be noticed. Will I be wasting valuable materials by finishing this rod? Opinions? (Phil Crangi) Don't really understand the question, but most of my blanks have some degree of 'not straight' I have found it very easy to straighten out the blanks with the use of a heat gun or lately with a Bunsen burner (just looks cool) I do use the Garrison method of marking the blank with a small pencil mark in the form of an arrow in the direction I need to bend the blank. Work on that area and then take off the mark and go to the next spot that needs work. Again I have never had a blank that I couldn't straighten. That's just too much work to throw away at that point. Now a glue line that's different. (Joe Arguello) What do you have to lose? If it were me I'd go ahead and try to take the bends out. How bad would it cast? Who knows until you try it. If it looks bad and doesn't cast well-tomato stake. (Don Schneider) I'd try using an old iron. Put the blank on your planing form and try to iron the kinks out. DO NOT-repeat DO NOT use SWMBO's good clothes iron. Buy a cheap one, or get one at a garage sale. (Neil Savage)
I've been helping a friend complete his first bamboo rod. I'm in a bit of a quandary with one of the tips. There is a crazy bend about 8 inches from the tiptop that when I try to correct the bend one way -- and it looks good -- you turn the tip over a flat or two and I find it's bending the other directions-almost like over compensation when straightening. It seems like no matter in what direction we try to correct the bend or how little correction, the bend flops over -- or sideways -- and ends up going in a different direction. I've only completed 10 rods, so I'm far from knowing what I am doing, but I haven't come across anything like this. Anyone have advice on what might be happening and how to correct it? (Jim Sabella) I used to have a tough time straightening in the correct direction. I was likely to bend the wrong flat. To fix that, I wrap masking tape around the section and color each flat a different color. Then, like Tony, I place the section against a straight edge, determine which direction it needs to be bent, paying attention to the appropriate colors, and bend. That way I am sure I bend in the correct direction. (Marv Loopstra) Sometimes it seems there is no way to get out a bend working in only one direction. In those cases, I find that sighting down the blank and bending first one way, then another, then another, then back the first way, then a fourth way and so on is the only solution. No time for careful checking between attempts, just bend one way, then another as long as the section is warm enough to work. Stay after it. You will get there. (Harry Boyd) What is it glued with? If you have used epoxy, what my advice would be would be to go through the process of heat-setting before doing anything else. Not guaranteed, but can help a lot in some rods. Good luck. (Peter McKean) PS I have built a couple of hundred rods and I STILL don't know the answer to these bloody gremlins, so don't lose hope......... You just joined the club. I find I have to be careful on how much pressure I have on the bend and what direction I am bending. It is really easy to put a bend in the wrong direction if not careful. I use a straight edge to check for straightness. Not much help I gave you but I am sure others will chime in. (Tony Spezio) I meant to say, but forgot - for years I listened to people who recommended using an iron (on DRY setting) to try to iron them straight, and thought what a damn fool idea it sounded. Then, recently I had one that had me jibbering and tearing my hair and I thought I'd try the iron. I reset the steel form so it just cradled the tip (where the problem was) section and carefully ironed it all six sides, thinking to myself what a bloody fool I was being; until the end of the process, at which point I found the tip nearly perfectly straight and true. I don't know if it will ever work again, but it sure did on this occasion. (Peter McKean) You know, having responded once, I thought I would put this out as a possible preventative method: Several rod making friends and I have started gluing strips by running them thru the binder and depositing them in a trough (PVC pipe cut lengthwise) on the outlet end of the binder, running a damp sponge over the section in the bottom of the trough on each flat and letting it dry in the trough. Don't pick it up, don't move it....let it lay and dry in the trough. We have found that we get more straight strips by this method than any other way. Doesn't solve your immediate problem but maybe in the future? (Marv Loopstra) This comes up from time to time, but binding the glued up sections into the aluminium six grooved extrusion now sold by Harry Boyd achieves straight sections. As the tip end is too thin to be held down by the loosely bound string, just place a strip of dowel in top, then bind. By the way, as I use the former Epon epoxy, after 12 hours, I take out the section, unbind it completely and scrape off all the semihard glue. Then rebind and put back in the extrusion for 24 hours. I eventually found that a BAHCO handle 625 and a three sided scraper blade 449 gave excellent control. Usually there are only a few glue spots to sand off. The sections are straight. (Sean McSharry) These can be frustrating. Just a thought, look and make sure you don't have a twist in the mix also. (Ken Weymouth) +1 for ironing. It's produced amazing results for me on some pretty funky twists/bends/kinks. 3 caveats, however:
Got home tonight to find many excellent responses to help solve my dilemma with the bent tip. Thanks all for helping me. First, answering your questions and then list some of the suggestions, solutions and preventions. Questions: How are you straightening the tips? Hot air gun with fishtail nozzle set on low. What is it glued with? Epoxy Some great suggestions:
Ok, you've got perfect strips. Glue is applied. Rod has just been bound. You've got a taper that is NOT a straight taper (convex, concave, compound, doesn't matter if it ain't straight). If you set it down to cure on a flat surface and leave it, there's a good chance that the blank will settle an undesirable amount toward the down flat due to gravity. Simliar to the potential effect of the binding tie-off knot, especially on the tip. The more convex or concave the taper, the more pronounced this effect ought to be. How do you solve this problem? If hanging is your broad answer, please share the nitty gritty aspects as I'm sure hanging is trickier than it seems, e.g. hanging knots might pull more to one side than the other, how much weight, weight attached to which end, and so on. Or, do you do something else entirely, like the Chinese finger puzzle method, or the Langer & Langer adjustable brace? Or maybe you just let it cure slightly warped and address it during blank straightening? (Chris Moore) I hang the sections from the small end, no weight. I take a piece of thread, tie a slip knot on each end to loop over around the section, arrange the knots so they pull from opposite sides to equalize lateral pressure, and hang them over a hook. (Bill Lamberson) I have the sections start out straight by lining the strips up along a straight pencil line when sticking them down to tape prior to applying glue. My Smithwick version 2 binder helps keep things straight. After binding, I use the flattening boards described by Marzio Giglio (IBRA Bamboo Journal, Number 5) combined with gentle straightening of any curves. Once I am satisfied, I hang the things up to let the glue set. (Tim Anderson) My binding thread is Button and Craft Thread from Walmart. After a section is bound, I tie off the binding thread. I then pull another 10 – 12 inches off the binder and cut it off. I tie a slip knot in each end and loop the knots over the smaller end of the rod section. The knots are tied such that increasing pressure makes them tighter. I position the knots a half inch or so from the ends of the section. The knots are positioned against flats on opposite sides of the section to equalize any lateral pressure during hanging. With the two ends knotted to the section, it leaves a loop between the knots that I simply hang over a hook in the ceiling. I leave the sections hanging for 24-48 hours for the glue (resorcinol/cascophen) to cure. (Bill Lamberson) I just use a clothes peg. For a while I used to glue a little 320 grit wet and dry sandpaper inside the jaws, but decided it didn't make enough difference to be worth it. I think there is always a few inches at each end that get trimmed off in any case, so don't mind it getting squashed a bit, because it is going in any case. I get so much mileage out of a roll of electrical fuse wire I bought a few years ago. For instance, I use it to bind down the tabs on ferrules after gluing, and it is great - easy to keep tension on, easy to clinch, leaves NO residue when you pull it off. In this case I just fit a loop to each peg by which to hang them, and once the section is bound I just put the peg on the thin end and hang it up. As we say so often in this group, "Works for me!" (Peter McKean) Anyone using a tensioner--Jacobs chucks with adjustable positioning on either end of a mounting board--such as that found in the Ray Gould book? Anyone doing something different for differing geometries? Quads? Pents? (Chris Moore) I did use a tensioner during my brief flirtation with Titebond III, it worked very well. I stopped using it when I went back to Epon as the time you'd have to keep the blank in the tensioner was more like 2-3 days rather than 1-2 hours. We're I to make a spiral rod I'd dig it back out. Speaking of spirals has anyone tried making a spiral without clamping the blank at predetermined points and simply twisting the blank and seeing where things ended up? My guess is that most of the twisting would be between the tip and the top few guides... (Henry Mitchell) Speaking of spirals has anyone tried making a spiral without clamping the blank at predetermined points and simply twisting the blank and seeing where things ended up? My guess is that most of the twisting would be between the tip and the top few guides. (Henry Mitchell) Sure did. First penta I made was a 6'6" three piece with rather small tips (.054) so I thought I should crank the tension up on my binder (first mistake) and I bound it really tight (second mistake). When I pulled the string off I had 8 complete twists in the tip, three within the first 3"! (Lee Gomolchak) I've made and used a tensioner like the one you described, but I haven't used it in quite a while. It was useful for straightening a slight twist in a blank from time to time. In recent years I've gone to hanging the blanks in my drying cabinet from plastic clamps. If a blank develops a minor bend, I straighten it later with low heat. (John Parmenter) I came up with something similar before I saw it in Goulds book. I hold the section under tension while I attack it with a hard rubber roller a la The Lovely Reed. Tension is provided by screen door springs and barrel swivels let me rotate the section. I roll again a piece of melamine shelf board. Strictly Rube Goldberg. Sections come out nice and straight except when they don't. (Frank Stetzer, Hexrod, Taper Archive, Rodmakers Archive)
I have read and found minimal information about adding weight to drying blanks and was wondering if anyone would care to shed some light on this process. (Dana Fish) No problems with lifting blanks supporting weight evenly, but changing binder tension mid-bind will sure mess you up. (Darrol Groth) Never had any luck. (Harry Boyd) I tried that....hung a couple of pounds to a couple of tip strips. Worried all night and they still cane out crooked. Yeah, tried hanging my strips from suspended clothes pegs and got crooked tips. Like some are saying.......after glue binding, leave them alone. (Tom Lucas) I think we may have talked about this before - maybe when you dropped by. Anyway, as others have said, I don't believe it is worth doing. I think most problems come from lifting the blank from the binder. (David Van Burgel) How does hanging a weight insure a straight section when glued? I would be interested in the mechanics of this operation. For what it is worth, straight sections at glue up depend on straight splines. (Jerry Drake) I'm not offering any answers here, just asking yet another inane question - from the time you split your strips until the rod is finished, how many times do you all perform some kind of heat-related straightening operation on them, including after they have been glued together? (Peter McKean) I build nodeless so no straightening of nodes, but sometimes there are twists in the middle of a section that require straightening, true of a set of strips on my bench at the moment. I straighten again at gluing (resorcinol) but no heat of course. I straighten after removing the string, glue and enamel (I use a Morgan Mill and plane with the enamel on). And, if necessary, straighten after the rod is finished, occasionally there is a crook at a ferrule that needs attention when the rod is assembled. (Bill Lamberson) I heat straighten after I press the nodes, doing the best I can to remove obvious twists, bends, etc. When I heat treat, I use Harry Boyds heat treating fixtures and these have been big help. Once I glue and bind the strips, I "roll" them between two boards. After they cure and the string is removed, I'll use mild heat to remove any twists if needed. (Cliff Nigh)
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