ferrule making

Ever wonder what goes into making a set of nickel silver ferrules? I was making a set last night and took a couple of in-process photos.

There are several ways to make ferrules; among them, you can start with round bar stock and machine off anything that doesn't look like a ferrule (the Michelangelo method...); or you can solder together different-sized tubes of nickel silver. I do the latter. (Each maker has his methods - mine will differ from other peoples'...)

In general, tubing is labeled by it's inner diameter, usually in 64ths of an inch. Most drawn tubing has a wall thickness of 1/64th, give or take.

So here's the first photo, of the nine metal components that go into a set of 14/64th step-down ferrules. Super-Zs are different, requiring different-size tubes and construction is a little different.
The male moisture dams get soldered into the right end of the male slide. Then the male sleeves get soldered onto the slides. The slide usually has to be machined down a bit for the shoulder to fit over it. See the top male ferrule.

The female moisture dam gets soldered inside the female barrel, at about the mid-point. it has to be set at the right depth so the male slide will fit fully into the barrel. The welt (16/64ths) is soldered onto the left end of the female barrel, so as to give the end of the tube more support. The barrel must be machined a little to accept the welt.

So, 9 pieces, 6 solder joints, and machining of most parts before you fit them, then again afterwards.

Here are the 3 pieces with everything soldered together:
You can't see the dams, but all 3 are in place. You can see that I have shaped the welt, at the left-hand side of the female. On the right-hand side of the female, you can see where I have machined away some metal; that will be where I cut the tabs, to fit up onto the 6 flats of the bamboo. You can see some "scale" on the lower slide, the result of heating it during soldering.

The male slides are soldered into the shoulders, and on the left you can see where I again have machined away nickel silver for the tabs area. I have roughly machined away excess solder at the joints, but there is more work to do there; remember that if you want blued ferrules, some modern blueing agents do not blue solder, so if ANY solder is visible, it will show as a bright line.

At this point, I still need to:
cut tabs and crown tabs
cut decorative lines into the female barrel and the male sleeves
remove visible solder
polish the inside of the female barrel
lap the male slides so they fit into the female
polish all visible outside surfaces

I'll post a couple more photos as I make more progress.

Continued:
Here are the ferrules, almost finished.
Here's what I did since yesterday:
turn down the male moisture dams, to create a good, smooth cylindrical end to the male
put decorative lines on the barrel of the female and the sleeves of the males; I put one line 50 thou from each end, but that's all cosmetic - a personal choice
polish the inside of the female barrel
lap the males to fit into the barrel
cut the 6 tabs at the bamboo-end of each piece
crown each tab to a pointed end
sand barrel and sleeves with 1500 sandpaper

I like to lap my ferrules (partially or fully) before mounting , but many don't do it until after gluing their ferrules to the bamboo.

Finally, I blued the pieces today. They are pretty much ready to be installed on my next Perfectionist now.


Looking back at this post, I realize that it's the short-form description of what is to be done - there are tricks and issues not yet discussed. But it does give the general process.

Bailey Woods at CSE charges something like $60 for a set of ferrules like this. When you look at the steps involved, you wonder how the guy makes money. I think he does it a lot and has gotten pretty darned fast! I'm a slow lathe operator; 3 or 4 hours to get this far is not abnormal for me. I do it because I enjoy it, and I want as much of the rod as possible to be from my hands, but economically, it doesn't make sense to make your own. Of course, if economics were my prime consideration, I'd not make rods at all.

Lee