D.R.Lewis, Salt Lake City, UTAH

Question
I purchased this 9' split bamboo fly rod and was wondering if you can tell me anything about it? D.R.Lewis is rubber stamped on one flat and salt lake city, Utah on the opposite side.it is continuously wrapped on each section with black and red colored 1/32" bands, the black bands are spaced 1" apart with hand inked numbers 0 to 20" on the butt sec. ahead of the grip. Some of the wrappings were undone on 1 of the tips and it looks like cotton so i lit a small piece and it burnt like a synthetic and the red and black bands were colored on the thread from butt to tips. All furniture is blued except were your pinky would rest on the reel seat, blue is worn off and showing brite, Nickel?

Answer
Hi Richard,

Send a few pictures to [email protected] and I'll see if I can identify the rod for you. I suspect that D.R. Lewis is the previous owner of the rod and that he or she lives or lived in Salt lake City.

If the intermediate wrappings exist all along the entire rod, this typically means it is an earlier rod made during the period when Calcutta Cane was used for split bamboo rod making; the preferred raw material for the past 100 years or so is Tonkin Cane.  The earlier rods also used glues that were typically animal based and the intermediate wraps were functional as a means to reinforce the glues used and protect the rod.

The 0"-20" markings could be original or they could be a feature added somewhere along the line to allow you to measure the fish caught with this rod.

The wraps are most likely silk thread which was standard in the majority of bamboo fly rods.  If the red and black colors alternate on one piece of thread, this is a thread where the two colors are twisted together on the spool...also called Twist or Jasper or Variegated thread.  If the colros red and black simply alternate from one wrap to the next, this is a common practice for many of the earlier rods.

The bluing is over what is called German Silver or Nickel Silver.  It is nickel plated brass.

Send the pictures and I'll see if I can identify the rod maker.

Thanks,  Joe