All of the whippings are on the rod, so now its time to seal them in preparation for varnishing. With modern materials its much easier to seal the whippings on a rod and this is usually a two stage process involving sealing the whippings with a thin fast drying water based adhesive, folllowed by a single coat of two part epoxy resin.
Although I could use this same process to seal the whippings on a cane rod, and some restorers do, I much prefer to ‘do things the old way’ and apply several coats of varnish to both the whippings and the rod. I do use a water based sealer on the whippings first though, as this is necessary to prevent the varnish from discolouring the nylon thread, or even making it transparent.
Incidentally, high-priced fly rods deliberately have translucent whippings, so if you want this effect applying varnish directly to the whippings without sealer will let you achieve this, but I’ve found that different colours and threads from different manufacturers give varying results, so try it on a sample whipping first.
There are various products available for sealing whippings, usually sold as colour preserver. I’m not too fussy about which I use as they all give similar results, and in a pinch I’ve even used watered down pva glue.
From the picture below you’ll see that I have not trimmed the ends of the intermediate whippings. This is because they could easily unravel, and I prefer to trim the ends after applying the sealer.
Whippings ready to be sealed
Apply the whipping sealer generously with a small soft brush, and work it into the thread. Remove any excess carefully with a soft cloth, and leave to dry. The drying time varies, but mostly this should only take a few minutes. The instructions say that one coat is sufficient, but I prefer to apply two to make sure all of the whipping is properly sealed.
Once the whippings have been sealed and trimmed we’ll be ready to varnish. I’ll cover that in the next post.
If you’re looking for an online source of the materials you’ll need for restoring a split cane rod, Tacklebargains.co.uk stock a wide range of rod building supplies including whipping thread, chrome guides and cork handles.
Search ebay for colour preserver
HELP!! (please!!).
I am restoring a Chapman Quinette Mk 8 – two top joints, one being the obligatory 6″ short, the other being new, courtesy of Chapmans . I have used Elephant Silk for all the whippings; Net Machine silk forthe Ferrules and rings, size 40 for the intermediates. I am using the”short” top joint as a test piece. All whippings have now had 5 coats of neat aircraft dope. Still the varnish (Blackfriars Exterior UV resistant) is leaching through to the threads causing the occasional very dark Tiger stripe in the body of the whipping and very dark blob where it leaks in the area of the foot of a ring.
I have in the past used high quality yacht varish (Epifanes) – very expensive, hard to find, (had to drive to Southampton, 70 miles, to get it) no shelf-life in the tin once opened, etc.
Should I a) apply more dope or b) go over the dope with a coat or two of pva thread sealer? Doing b) – is there a danger of leakage etc.?
Its getting me down as I want to use the rod – its taken a very long time to get this far for a variety of reasons.
I will be very grateful for any proven, successful advice that comes my way.
I look forward to hearing.
Many thanks
Mike Andrews
p.s I like the idea of leaving the long tags on the inters, which I now adopt.
Hi Mike,
I haven’t used dope to seal whippings for years. almost forgotten about it, although I did used to use it a lot because it dried quickly and made building up the coats very quick.
Back then I used single colour thread, so discolouration would have been uniform and just shown up as a general darkening I suppose.
These days I just apply a few coats of colour preserver. and haven’t really had a problem with the varnish seeping through, even when I’ve just used watered down PVA glue.
Not sure whether putting colour preserver over the top of the dope would work, although I guess it should. Sorry I cant offer more help, as I say, I find a few coats of colour preserver works fine.
Maybe another reader can offer some advice?
Good luck with the restoration.
Paul
Epifanes is the dog’s, easy to buy on line.
When I buy it I decant is into several small bottles and open a new bottle for ever rod.