SRG 2009 Videos - Making Ferrules and Rattan Grips

Five new videos from the 2009 Southern Rodmakers Gathering are finished.  They're too long to post on a free video site so you'll have to download them from my file transfer site and view them with Windows Media Player or something else that will play an Mpeg.  These are low quality videos to keep the file size down but good enough for how to videos. Each video is a 200 Megabyte 20 minute Mpeg.  It takes about fourty-five minutes to download each video with my cable connection so plan accordingly.  I've posted a short trailer on YouTube so you can take a look before you start a download.  I want to thank Jed Dempsey, Alan Kube and Bob Nunley for allowing me to video their presentations and share them with you here on the blog.  Here's the trailer and the links to the files:



Links to download the video files:

Ferrule Making History - Jed Dempsey
Drawing Tubing, The Push Method - Jed Dempsey
Making Step Down Ferrules - Alan Kube
Making Super Z Ferrules - Alan Kube
Making A Rattan Grip - Bob Nunley

More Music - Utzerath Style

The relationship between bamboo fly rods and acoustic music is undeniable. There's a common thread that I can't quite put into words, but it's there. Jim Utzerath (FlexRod author) sent links to a couple videos of his daughter playing the fiddle (or violin depending on where you're from). She plays with a group called Dr. Hojka's Medicine Show (projounced Hoi-ka). More of Michelle's work is posted at www.myspace.com/drhojkas.

If there are other rod makers with acoustic links they'd like to share, post a comment in the Cbox in the left had frame of the blog with the link to the audio or video files. Scroll down below my mug shot to get to the Cbox. If we have a few to post, I'll start a new category on the blog for acoustic stuff.

Bluegrass at it's Best

This is a little off topic for this blog, but it seems that many of us in the rod making community love acoustic music. Bluegrass and folk music run deep in my soul. I grew up in the "folk capital of the world", Mountain View, Arkansas. I have instruments all over the house but can't play any of them worth a lick. I'm always impress by young folks that have natural talent and a passion for music. I learned yesterday of a family that's growing up with bluegrass in the house. I went to school with the parents. They're great folks! Here's a few of their home videos.







Here's the family web site:

http://www.clarkbrosband.com/

Smith River Montana - June 2007

I suppose I should explain why there are no fish pictures in this video. If you'll play it again and look closely at the first few pictures you should see some really dark clouds gathering in the background. It rained non-stop for the first 24 hours of the trip. The river was blown out by what the weather man said would be scattered showers that day. If you're familiar with the Smith, then you know that the next access point is 50 miles down stream. So...we had a great time taking pictures, eating great camp cooking and throwing monster flies in really muddy water. It was a lot of fun without the fish. But...a trout or two would have been a good thing. Maybe next time.

Making a Bamboo Fly Rod

Click here to see the photos in this video with captions that briefly describe each step of the process. Click on "Making a Rod" in the post categories to read through the corresponding posts.

North Sylamore Creek

Splitting - Harry Boyd & Jeff Fultz

Straightening & Flatening Nodes

Straightening Blanks - Harry Boyd

Scarfing - Mark Wendt