454 
Forest and Stream 
Keep Your Gun 
Clean 
When you start an automo- 
bile motor you cause an ex- 
plosion in the cylinders — this 
creates carbon, destructive to 
the cylinder walls, and in time 
you must have the valves' 
ground. Leaving it in cuts 
down your power and increases 
the strain on your motor. 
When you fire a gun you 
create the same carbon, only 
it is a hundredfold more de- 
structive — due to the powerful 
nitro acids. 
Worse than the motor carbon — it 
creates greater strain on the barrel 
of the giin if allowed to harden, but 
it also destroys the surface of the 
tube and there are no valves that 
can be reground. Once the surface 
of your rifle barrel is spoiled it is 
ruined beyond repair. 
The garage man takes care of 
your car; let Hoppe’s take care of 
your gun. 
HOPPE’S 
NITRO POWDER 
SOLVENT NO. 9 
The greatest boon to the 
modern rifleman 
Hoppe’s No. 9 removes every trace 
of powder residue from your rifle or 
shotgun. It eliminates the acid 
gases caused by nitro powder and 
prevents fouling and pitting. It 
prevents and removes rust in any 
climate. 
Sportsmen have been using Nitro 
Powder Solvent No. 9 for eighteen 
years and still find it the best 
method of taking care of their pet 
shooting irons. You’ll find it an aid 
to accuracy, and after you use No. 9 
you won’t nuss that easy shot be- 
cause your rifle was not cleaned 
properly. 
Your sporting goods dealer can 
supply you. 
You know your gun is clean if you 
use Hoppe’s Nitro Powder Sol- 
vent No. 9. 
FRANK A. HOPPE, Inc. 
2314 North 8th Street 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Telling his Experience 
tfl 
In Writiny 
to soften the cement and turn it to the 
required position. 
The writer of the article was rather 
too specific; he possibly had something 
that just suited his own ideas, therefore 
he decided that it was just right for 
everybody else. The tip had to be just 
so long, the weight just so much, the 
butt had to be of such a length and of 
such a wood ; the guides had to be in 
pairs and placed just so far from the 
end of the rod, etc. 
A great many casters prefer the single 
guide for many and good reasons, and 
its position upon the tip may vary ac- 
cording to the weight, length, or taper 
of the stick. These factors determine 
the point of rest, as we might term it, 
or the place where the guide should be 
placed; at any rate, that is what some 
rod makers have told me, so I pass it 
on for what it may be worth. They 
determine this point thusly: Taking the 
rod and pointing it straight aw'ay from 
the body, a sharp blow is given the butt ; 
this wdll cause the tip end to vibrate up 
and down but, at a point some fifteen 
inches or so from the tip, there will be 
a place apparently of no movement or a 
point from which the vibrations seem to 
start towards the ends of the rod. The 
illustration (Fig. 3) may possibly make 
my meaning a bit more clear. 
We are not all built alike by any 
means, and a short rod may just suit a 
certain fellow’s makeup, but a rod of 
over six feet in the tip, w'hich the writer 
of the before-mentioned article men- 
tioned as “very unwieldy,” is not at all 
too long for the big husky six-footer; in 
fact, most of the tips that I have noticed 
in use at the casting fields by the best 
distance getters are w'ell over six feet. 
I THINK that all anglers wdll agree 
^ that split bamboo, provided it is of 
the best quality, is the very best material 
from which to construct tips. It must 
be of the best grade or the solid wood 
rod of good make will be the better 
implement. For the beginner, who 
wdshes to construct his own tip, it wdll 
be a pretty tough job to split, form and 
glue up the sections of cane; tips of 
bamboo, how'ever, of various lengths and 
weights, may be purchased from many 
of the tackle houses, all formed of split 
cane glued together and ready for 
mounting — and finishing. 
It is well to start in this way unless 
one has had considerable practice in 
making rods from the solid woods. No 
doubt the most desired bamboo is the 
Calcutta cane, but this quality is now- 
hard to find and the usual cane in the 
market is the Tonkin, a lighter colored 
material. Tonkin cane is sometimes 
burned and darkened to imitate the Cal- 
cutta, but one need not fear this in a 
reliable house. 
These glued up tips as they come from 
the manufacturer have been split or 
machine sawed into lengths, and each 
strip, if perfect, should be so shaped 
that a cross section of any strip should 
be an equilaterial triangle. 
The very best tip, of course, would be 
one that is really hand made; the rane 
split by hand and the strips' carefully 
to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream. It will 
sorted and inspected for the proper se- 
lection. There can be, however, no tip 
entirely made by hand; there must 
naturally be some machine process, but 
there is a great deal of difference, never- 
theless, between what is termed a hand- 
made rod and a cheap machine-made 
article. 
The tips may be either six-strip, eight- 
strip, or twelve-strip. The first two 
named are of single enamel; the latter 
of double enamel, or, to be more explicit, 
the twelve-strip or double-enamel rod is 
really two rods in one — one built over 
the other. The strips of split and shaped 
cane are glued together with the hard 
springy enamel surface out, the pithy 
part on the inside. 
If the work has been done correctly a 
cross section of the rod will be a he.xa- 
gon, and will be solid to the centre. In 
a poorly made rod, a cross section may 
show that the strips are not all of the 
same width, and possibly, in some strips, 
to bring down the raised joints, they 
have been so planned that the enamel 
has been completely cut through to the 
soft spongy inside so that it is worthless. 
A reliable dealer, however, will sell you 
a good tip and you will pay ten to fifteen 
dollars for it, but it is well worth the 
cost. A poorly constructed tip is a bad 
investment at any price. Perhaps it may 
be well to state that one cannot save 
much if anything, in making one’s own 
rod, as the prices of parts have risen like 
everything else. 
It is best to have the hand-grasp or 
ferrule end turned by some one who has 
a lathe, as it is rather a job to fit a 
ferrule nicely. Still, the w’ood may be 
rounded nicely by knife and file if one 
is careful. If the tip is to be fitted with 
a dowel one will have another hard trick 
as it is rather a nice piece of work to 
center a dowel well. 
If one wants to start out at the be- 
ginning with a wood rod. the solid sticks 
in the square may be obtained at a dealer 
who, however, may not guarantee the 
material. He can naturally not guar- 
antee the stock and will not hold himself 
responsible for any defects that may 
develop ; a good house, however, will 
advise that the wood has been carefully 
selected and that it is well seasoned; that 
is about as far as they can be expected 
to go — one can never tell how the wood 
may be on the inside of the rough stock; 
Wood for rod making may be pur- 
chased in different lengths and from 
one-half inch to one-inch square. If 
one has no lathe, nor any means of hav- 
ing the tip turned from the square stock, 
each edge should be planed down until 
there is an eight-sided section; planing 
off these edges one will have a stick of a 
fairly round cross section, then it may 
be brought to the desired taper by using 
a piece of brass into which one has filed 
gauges with a round file. The only 
tools actually needed are plane, file, 
knife, and some sandpaper or scraper — 
glass or a steel edge. 
^ OW the stick may be tested for 
^ ^ roundness. The rod should be sus- 
pended from its previously marked cen- 
‘ {Continued on pa^c 46U) 
identify you. 
