When Gerri and I started working together to design our rods our goal was to create an elegant combination of materials and colors that were both distinctive and different from other rods. Gerri has a beautiful garnet ring that both of us love, and we decided to use the deep translucency of garnet for our signature color. We wanted our rods created with superb workmanship making certain our customers have rods they are proud to own. We are very pleased with the designs that have evolved.

We make both bamboo and graphite rods. Some of the components are unique for each material while others are shared. In this section, we will define the components and specify which are used with each rod material.

Graphite Rod Blanks.
Our rod blanks are carefully manufactured to our specifications using our mandrels and designs. They are completely unique to us and unavailable anywhere else. The blanks are made from a medium modulus graphite with extremely high tensile strength. The color we chose shows deep claret bordering on red-black in the shade, but, in sunlight, it is a brilliant red--just like a garnet.

Bamboo and Graphite Rod Tubes.
We had a special die made to extrude a heavy wall octagonal aluminum tube, our signature shape, to protect your rod. We worked with a powder coater to develop a textured tube coating that is the brilliant red of a garnet in the sunlight similar to our graphite rod blank's translucent red color. The black anodized aluminum caps and collar of this tube have the distinctive look and feel of an old-fashioned walking cane head. On top of our rod cap is a minted pure silver medallion of our logo set into a polished brass ring. A little recognized feature of the cap and collar is that, when the cap is removed, the rod, within its bag, is sitting above the tube for easy access. This combination of components makes a truly stunning presentation.

Bamboo and Graphite Rod Bags.
The bags are a garnet Supplex material trimmed in a complementary piping that is custom made by our seamstress. They are lined with suede-like fabric to provide the best protection for the rods, treating them just like fine jewelry. The bamboo rod bags have a special compartment to hold the ferrule plug while the rod is in use. An outer bag provides overall protection for the tube.

Bamboo and Graphite Reel Seats.
The look of the seats is derived from the style of the rod tube and caps to provide an integrated design. Our logo is engraved on the end caps of the seats set within a brass ring. A wide selection of reel seat woods is offered to enhance the beauty of these seats. Please see the Woods section.

For our graphite rods, we offer two types of custom nickel silver seats; a slide band with a fixed hood and an uplocking screw-lock seat with a hidden hood. These rods are available with polished nickel silver reel seats, winding checks, and tip checks along with hard chrome plated guides and tip-tops.

The bamboo rods are available with a diminutive new slide band seat made especially for them patterned after our original design or our traditional up-lock screw seat. When you order a bamboo rod, you have two choices for hardware color; bright polished fittings with hard chrome plated guides and tip-tops or traditional style bronzed guides and black hardware. We are using a special black plated finish on the fittings that provides beauty in addition to a long-wearing finish. The up-lock seats are only offered with bright fittings because the black coating isn't compatible with the screw lock threads.

Bamboo and Graphite Winding Checks.
Our graphite rods have a special octagonal nickel silver winding check that is highly polished. The bamboo rods have a hexagonal winding check that is also hexagonal on the inside to fit perfectly over the bamboo. If bright fittings are chosen they are polished, but on rods with black hardware they are polished then plated to match the other fittings.

Cork Handles.
One must accept the fact that cork is a natural material; as a result, it is never without some blemishes. Nevertheless, we pride ourselves on the quality of our cork grips. We buy the very best cork rings available then very carefully sort them for lack of cosmetic blemishes. After this preliminary sorting, the individual corks are matched for uniform color, assembled into handle sets, and glued onto the rod one ring at a time. Then they are individually hand-shaped on a wood lathe into traditional cigar, half wells, or your custom designed grips. We start with a rough sandpaper and gradually work each handle to shape with progressively finer grades of paper before finishing it with 400- and 600-grit sandpaper for a silky smooth feel.

Our standard graphite half wells handles on 6-, 5-, 4-, and 3-weight rods are 6 1/2" long. The cigar handles for the 6- and 5-weight rods are 6 1/2" long; 4-, 3-, and 2-weight are all 6" long. The bigger rods have grips that are larger in diameter; the smaller ones have thinner grips.

The standard half wells handle on the 5-weight bamboo rod is 6 1/2" long while on the 3- and 4-weight bamboo rods they are 6" long. The cigar handles are all 6" long.

Because we make every handle individually, we welcome your suggestions as to overall length, diameter, and shape to provide you with the perfect handle. If you want a custom grip, please send a sketch with dimensions so that we can meet your request.

Threads, Coatings, and Guides.
On both our graphite and bamboo rods, we use a strong nylon thread without color preserver that, when coated, is a dark red translucent color. On the graphite rods, it complements the garnet color of the blank; on the bamboo the dark red color highlights the beauty of the bamboo. We use a fine gold-colored trim wire that adds a touch of elegance to the wrappings. The thread coating is applied in several thin coats to achieve well-coated wraps that aren't bulky. The graphite snake guides are lightweight stainless steel that are hard chrome plated for lasting durability while the stripping guides are hand-made nickel silver wire with a reddish colored synthetic agate for the ring.

On our bamboo rods, we are using special lightweight snake guides, a very important aspect of the rod design, in order to minimize as much as possible the static load on the rod from guides and tip-tops. This weight reduction allows the delicate feeling of the bamboo to come through comparatively unhindered. The beautiful new snake guides and tiptops we employ are designed and made by Mike and Susan McCoy of Snake Brand Guides. They also hand-make the stripping guides, using nickel silver wire and traditional agate rings with their subtle natural colors. If you choose bright fittings, the guides and tip-tops are chrome plated whereas the stripping guide is polished nickel silver; if you choose black fittings, the snake guides are traditional bronze while the stripping guides and tip-tops are plated black.