The Angler’s Workshop. 
Fishing Rod Making for the Beginner 
By PERRY D. FRAZER 
XI.—Winding 
W HEN your rod is ready to be wound, your 
hands being perfectly clean, lay on your 
work table a small spool of buttonhole 
silk, the silk to be used in winding, a bit of wax, 
a pair of small scissors, and a very sharp knife. 
From the buttonhole silk cut a piece four inches 
long, wax it, lay the ends together and draw it 
through the fingers until it will lie straight with 
the looped end ready for use. We will call it 
the pull-through. 
It is assumed that your silk is not waxed, and 
that you take up the butt joint of your rod. the 
first winding to be put on just above the metal 
taper of the handgrasp. Lay the silk along the 
rod, hold the end with the left thumb and be¬ 
gin the first circle, toward the right, turning the 
rod toward the left meanwhile. This will bind 
the end of silk, as shown in Fig. 50. Turn the 
rod slowly toward the left with the left hand, 
holding the silk tight in the right hand, which 
guides it. Draw the silk as tight as possible 
during the first three turns, so that it will ad¬ 
here to the rod. 
If you wish to make ten or twelve circlets, 
after the sixth one lay the pull-through (d Fig. 
51) along the rod, loop toward the left, and 
wind over it, as shown in Fig. 54; but if the 
winding is to be a narrow one, the pull-through 
should be inverted at the beginning. This step 
is illustrated in Figs. 51 and 52. Count each 
complete circlet, at least at first, in order that 
all windings will be uniform. At the end hold 
the wound silk under the left thumb, cut it with¬ 
in an inch of the thumb, tuck the end (b Fig. 
52) through the loop of the pull-through and 
draw the latter under the winding, the end of 
silk following as in Fig. 53. 
When the pull-through is free, pull on the end 
(6) of winding silk until it is tight, then shave 
it off even with the winding and cut the 
original end (a) even with the last circlet of silk. 
(This is often cut after the fifth or sixth circlet) 
Fig. 55 illustrates the method employed in mak¬ 
ing a narrow border of say, red, for a wide 
band of say, green. The figure shows the wide 
green band finished and the first stage in wind¬ 
ing the border. In this case the original end of 
silk (a Fig. 53) is not cut off until the border is 
finished, as it helps to hold both bands together. 
The pull-through is inserted at the beginning 
of the border winding, and used in the same 
manner as illustrated in Fig. 53. 
This method of manipulating rod windings Is 
the simplest one of several for making so-called 
endless windings. It is capable of numerous 
Rods — Continued. 
variations, and it is not only easy to learn, but 
insures satisfaction. 
The secret of the method is to keep the pull- 
through of buttonhole silk well waxed, and to 
discard it for a new one whenever it shows 
wear. 
In all books on rodmaking more compli¬ 
cated forms of winding are described and illus- 
strated. The first step is alike in all of these, 
but their authors describe the finishing step 
in other ways. The most common form con¬ 
sists in laying the* winding silk along the 
rod, so that long spirals can be passed over 
the end of the rod and drawn taut, then the 
scribed by me, save that no separate pull- 
through is employed. If one is winding near 
the middle of a long joint, this method is 
tedious in the extreme, and the silk not only 
snarls up, but becomes frayed. There is a way 
to partially overcome this, which consists in 
first winding backward in long spirals, passing 
the end under these, winding tight, then pulling 
the silk under; but it, too, is tedious: 
Many years ago I discarded these methods 
for the separate pull-through, and have used 
it in all windings since then. Jt may be ancient, 
but I have never seen it described in any work 
on fishing tackle. It is, however, one of the 
most useful of all wrinkles, and is particularly 
handy in splicing silk lines. With this pull- 
through fancy windings of only two or three 
turns of silk can be so neatly made that only 
after minute inspection can the blind ends of the 
silk be seen. Indeed, I have had anglers assert 
that such windings had been pasted down with 
shellac, and only after inspecting them with a 
magnifying glass were they convinced that the 
silk ends were actually pulled under and cut off. 
I have examined split bamboo tournament 
rods in which the lower strips had given way 
through hard usage, but the narrow .bands of 
silk had held so firmly that they were all 
ruptured at the line of the break, the ends re¬ 
maining unmoved. This also shows the strength 
of silk windings, however narrow. 
Different persons wind rods differently. My 
way may not be the best one, but I will de¬ 
scribe it. I begin with the butt joint and place 
a rather wide band of say, green, with a narrow 
red border next to the handgrasp taper, then a 
similar band on each side of the ferrules and at 
the top. After that I wind the guides with say, 
green, with narrow red' borders. This leaves 
only red silk to finish, and enables you to 
evenly divide the remaining spaces to be wound. 
The space between the handgrasp and the first 
guide is measured. Mark off every i )4 inches 
from the guide down, and if you like finish up 
with eight or ten five-turn windings just ahead 
of the first band at the taper, for ornaments. 
Wind the red bands, then mark the spaces be¬ 
tween the two guides, or hand guide and 
ferrule, wind there, and so on. So long as all 
spacing is uniform, any necessary variations will 
not be noticed, but as a general thing make the 
spaces closer and closer toward the tip, and if 
there is a separate tip, place its guides and wind¬ 
ings so that it will match its fellow tip. 
At first one is inclined to make his windings 
wide, believing that they are handsome so; but 
as they are not necessary, it is well to make 
them all ten or twelve turns, with still narrower 
ones next to the wide bands covering the guides, 
and at the ends of the joints. Red being a last¬ 
ing color, it is well to use it thoroughout, with 
light or medium green for borders. All red 
without ornaments requires much less work, 
but is not so neat as if there is some relief. 
If you object to colors, use cream or light 
yellow silk, which will hardly show on bam¬ 
boo or dagama. For bethabara red is stand¬ 
ard. Green alone or as a predominating color 
lacks taste, although it comes out well for nar¬ 
row borders with red. At one time I happened 
to see a spool of lilac silk while winding a rod. 
and tried it. It looked so neat at first that I 
used it throughout the rod, using apple green 
for borders. The rod was a good one, but I 
couldn’t stand those colors, and gave it away 
to a fisherman in Canada. Somehow the colors 
“got on his nerves,” too, and he in turn gave 
the rod to an uncle whose vision was poor. I 
trust the old gentleman does not consider it a 
hoodoo rod, as his nephew and its maker did. 
There is a sort of unwritten law among rod- 
makers to use heavy winding silk on large rods, 
and so on down to the finest silk for light fly- 
rods. It is well to follow this rule as far as 
may be possible. On tarpon, heavy salt water 
and trolling rods, on salmon rods and on the 
