Wood rod tubes - Probably more than you want to know so I won't add all the source for this now. (my thoughts without source yet is in parenthesis)
First - these rod tubes are not cedar.
CF Orvis first wood tubes (1870) were square and tapered, with a flip top lid.
CF Orvis second wood tubes were round with a flip top lid.
CF Orvis third wood tubes were round with a thin stamped overlay lid over the cap (three captured screws)
Tube 1 and 2 were sold at the same time, there was cross over in early catalogs.
Tube 3 has a pat pending date on the inside of the thin cap "July 1883". However I have rods in their correct tubes that have flip lids and the rods were made in the 90's so the cap date is not the "start" use date.
CF Orvis painted the tubes and called it "mahogany" colored. (from the hardware paint/varnish store across the street on Union)
All the lids I've seen were made from black walnut (as the reel cases ... maybe the cutout as the grain goes across instead of turned like a rod and cutoff
), even the screw lids.
The tubes were tapered
The round tubes were made like cooperage/barrels. The staves have multiple angles top to bottom and edge cut. The three tin metal bands (made next door in the Swett tin shop) hold the staves together with a single nail at start and finish of the band.
Cooperage/barrels are either "tight" or "slack". Tight are used for liquids like kegs etc. Slack are less expensive and aren't liquid tight (they were painted to seal the tube). These are the woods that were used to make slack barrels in Vermont from most often, to least. Spruce, Beech, Birch, Eastern white pine, red maple - a softer maple than sugar/hard maple. These woods were local as were many of the woods that CF Orvis rod makers experimented with. At one point in the 60's Franklin, Charles more successful older brother, was part owner in a lumber mill around Manchester Center.
I've searched for who brought the cooperage skills to the rod shop but haven't located that yet. There was a lot of cooperage happening to the east of the Orvis shop.
Thank you very much, Joel and Royce.
