186 THE IDYL OF THE SPLIT-BAMBOO 



forate as required, may be had of selected quality 

 from your tackle-dealer, or you can utilize the best 

 of large corks obtained from the paint or drug store, 

 such as are used for gallon cans or for the wide- 

 mouthed vaseline bottles. To perforate these, you 

 file a cutting edge on the end of a brass ferrule or 

 other piece of metal tubing of suitable size; you 

 either may fit this with a handle, or secure it in the 

 vise by means of your wooden holder (see chapter 



Fig. 7 Cork grasp 



on " Ferrules ") and bore the hole by turning the 

 cork backward and forward against its sharp end. 



Finally, make a cedar reelseat of similar style to 

 that described above, but with a hole, an inch or 

 more in depth, bored into its front end for fitting 

 that over the other end of the bamboo-core and up 

 against the hindermost cork-ring, where it is glued 

 into place and reinforced by insertion of a piece of 

 the pointed end of a small brass escutcheon-pin. 

 Your cork-ringed fly-rod handgrasp now will be in 

 the state indicated by Fig. 7. It remains to finish 

 up the reelseat, including the mounting of reel-bands 

 and butt-cap, as already detailed, and to work the 

 cork part or grasp proper down to shape as shown 

 by the dotted lines of the above illustration. A file 



