Secret_Fishing_Tricks-024
INTRODUCTION
Secret Fishing Tricks
OTHER WOODS USED FOR ROD BUILDING 107sections
that are superior to such wood as Greenheart,
both as to durability and action. It was a great favorite of
early rod makers.The myth that second growth ash is better than
first
growth is not at all true. Both are identical, if grown
uncrowded. Second growth timber sometimes gets a better chance
to grow uncrowded, and hence there are many who prefer second
growth timber. Today ash is used mostly for baseball bats.HARD
MAPLE: At one time this wood was used somewhat for
trolling rods but not in recent years. It is used for handles on
surf rods and salt water rods and is fairly well suited to this
purpose.CHAPTER XIIGLASS FISHING RODSA BRIEF
HISTORY OF GLASS RODSThe word Fiberglas has
received a great deal of publicity.
It is however simply a trade mark for glass fibers registered by
the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. The word Fiberglas refers to
nor does it mean any specific type of glass or glass
fibers.Fine glass fibers were commercially unknown twenty years
ago and were developed only after a seven year research program
started in 1931 by the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. In 1935,
Corning Glass Works also began research and the staffs of the
two companies exchanged technical data of their progress to
accelerate the development of this new material. Five million
dollars were expended by these two concerns in this seven year
period. The glass fibers or rovings and cloths now used in glass
rod manufacture were first developed in 1936 and 1937 but were
not offered commercially until 1938. In this year these two
companies also joined to form the Owens-Corning Fiberglas
Corporation as it is known today. The years 1939 and 1940 were
spent mainly in developing mass production processes and in
improving their products. The outbreak of World War II brought
on huge demands for glass fiber products and soon 93% of all
production was being supplied for war purposes. The Korean war
brought out even more military uses of glass fibers. Helmets,
bullet proof vests, flak jackets, landing boats, gasoline tanks,
airplanes, and containers for parachuted items were made of
glass fibers bonded together with plastic.It was during World
War II in 1944 that Dr. Arthur M.
Howald, technical director for the Plaskon Division of Libbey-
Owens Ford Glass Company, developed the idea of glass fiber
fishing rods. During a fishing trip in northern Michigan he
broke the tip of his bamboo fly rod. Bamboo replacement tips
were nearly impossible to obtain so he fashioned one from
Plaskon Resin reinforced with glass fibers. This tip proved so
successful that he made a complete rod of glass fibers
reinforced with resin. This was the crude beginning of the glass
fiber rods as we know them today. These first glass fiber rods
were actually very impractical. They absorbed moisture badly and
in humid areas broke like matches. The resin used to bond the
glass fibers would not stick to the glass and kept breaking away
from the glass fibers. Dr. Howald’s first experimental knowledge
was given to the Shakespeare Company who made the first
commercial glass fiber rods. The young Mr. Shakespeare sent me
one of these first rods to try. I still have it as a souvenir.
These first rods had a balsa wood core with a woven sheath of
glass yarn or fibers, impregnated with resin. The final finish
was a spiral wrap of cellophane. At this time glass fiber rods
were doomed to complete failure just as glass fishing lines had
failed before them and both for the same reason. The products
absorbed moisture and became brittle in humid climates and the
resin bonding them broke away from the glass. The famous Dupont
company now came to the rescue and are really the father of the
glass rod. They developed a chrome bath to give to the glass
fibers that made them resist moisture and that made the resins
stick to them. Without the Dupont invention there would be no
glass rods today.GLASS FISHING RODS109Soon after this period
all commercial rod builders begin
turning to glass fibers for rod construction and we now have
over forty different concerns making glass fiber rods in the
United States. These rods are being used all over the world and
at least one concern in Great Britain has begun the manufacture
of hollow glass fiber rods.THE MAKING OF FINE GLASS
FIBERSGlass filaments or fibers measuring .00036 inches in
diameter have the maximum strength. They will resist
temperatures up to 1,000 degrees F. They are perfectly round.
Larger glass fibers become more brittle as the diameter
increases and do not have as great a tensile strength. These
larger diameter fibers of course are easier to manufacture and
handle and are much cheaper. Glass cloth or yarn made from these
larger fibers are used on cheaper rods. Visually cloth or yarn
made from coarser fibers looks exactly the same as cloth or yarn
made from the more expensive finer fibers. As before mentioned
however such yarn or cloth is much more brittle and has far less
tensile strength.Briefly this is how fine glass fibers are
made.Clear glass marbles about the same size we used to play
marbleswith are dropped into a stoker above a platinum floored
oven. Platinum is used for the oven floor as it is the only
metal that can withstand severe heat and not close up the fine
holes drilled in it. As the marbles melt they are drawn through
the fine holes in the platinum. The filaments formed by this
drawing are like clear spider webs. An operator gathers up these
fine fibers of glass and starts them on a motor driven bobbin
beneath the oven as the illustration shows. The glass fibers on
the way from the oven to the bobbin are sprayed with ordinary
starch. The starch acts as a binder and also makes them visible.
The fibers are then wound into yarn and the yarn is wound onto a
spool.The spools of glass yarn are now put in an oven and
subjected to heat enough to ba-ke out the starch. The yarn is
then given the Dupont chrome bath. This invention gives the
glass fibers a permanent coat which tends to shed moisture and
most important of all makes the resin when applied stick tightly
to the glass. As before mentioned without this Dupont chrome
treatment glass fishing rods would not be in use today.The
early glass rods made without Dupont chrome treated
glass fibers
