Jointed Fishing Rods: Two- and Three-Piece Casting, Trout and Bass Fly, Salt-Water and Tarpon Rods (Boy Mechanic, 1915)

"While the action of the one-piece rod is undeniably better than when the rod is made in two or three pieces, it is less compact to carry." He warns that "the more joints incorporated in a rod, the less satisfactory it will be from an angling standpoint", since ferrules cannot follow the rod's curve.

Pick a rod from the notebook. Stock (dagame or greenheart): two-piece casting -- butt 5/8 in x 3 ft, two tips 3/8 in x 3 ft; three-piece casting -- all 2 ft, butt 5/8 in, joint and tips 3/8 in; trout or bass fly -- butt 5/8 in x 4 ft, joint and tips 3/8 in x 4 ft; salt-water -- both 4 ft, butt 3/4 in, tip 1/2 in; tarpon -- one piece 1 in x 6-1/2 ft.

Plane, round and scrape each section exactly as for the one-piece rod, calipering at every station in the table. Two-piece casting rod: he first suggests a butt of about 23 in and a 32-1/2 in tip to fit a 35 in rod case, then specifies a 6-1/2 oz rod with a 32-1/2 in butt (15/32 in at the grasp to 19/64 in at the ferrule) and a 33 in tip (17/64 in to 7/64 in), equal when ferrule and top are on. Make two tips for each rod.

Fit a welted, shouldered ferrule at each joint, sized from his list: 17/64 in for the two-piece casting rod; 21/64 in and 15/64 in for the three-piece; 9/32 in and 11/64 in for the fly rods; 7/16 in for the salt-water rod; a 3/4 in male ferrule on the tarpon butt. The tip ferrule comes with two closed-end centres, one for each tip. Cement them on with ferrule cement; serrated (toothed) ferrule ends are wound with silk for strength.

Build the cork grasp and reel seat as for the one-piece rod: 3/4 in reel seat with straight hood for the casting rods (fly-rod type with butt cap on the fly rods, 9 in or 9-1/2 in of cork above it), 7/8 in on the salt-water rod with an 18 in double grasp, 1 in on the tarpon rod. Use a 1 in butt cap (1-1/8 in on the tarpon rod) and a taper (winding check) of the small-end size in his list. For an independent butt, fit the ferrule straight on a rounded dagame core so the seated ferrule does not touch the wood, cement and rivet it, fit a soft-pine sleeve over core and ferrule, glue it on, cement and rivet the reel seat, then glue on the corks and cut the core flush.

Casting rods: two 1/2 in narrow agate guides, two No. 1 one-ring casting guides and two 3/32 in offset agate tops. Fly rods: two No. 4 snake guides on the butt joint, three No. 3 on the middle joint, three No. 2 on each tip, and two No. 7 agate angle fly tops of the wind-on kind. Salt-water rod: a 10/32 in stirrup-tube agate top and two No. 3 bell guides. Tarpon rod: two No. 11 wide raised agate guides, two No. 1 trumpet guides and a 3/8 in agate stirrup top; whip its guides on double, the first set 10 in from the top, the second 26 in from the reel. Whip with 00 silk (00 or 0 on the three-piece rod, size A on the salt-water and tarpon rods), using the invisible knot.

Shellac the windings and varnish the rod with coach varnish as for the one-piece rod: thin coats, warm, three days between coats.

From "Fishing-Rod Making and Angling, Part II" by Stillman Taylor, in **The Boy Mechanic, Book 2**, Popular Mechanics, 1915 (Project Gutenberg 44585; checked on the archive.org scan boymechanicbook200chic2, pp. 69-72). Two points are given as he wrote them: the two-piece casting rod's butt is about 23 in in one sentence and 32-1/2 in in the next; the three-piece rod's stock is "2 ft. long" while its finished sections are 21-1/2, 21-3/4 and 21 in. Guide counts in the list are for the fly rods, the largest set. The tools and metric figures are ours.