Swelled Butts and Progressive Tapers Questions

[DaveNJ]

Hey guys,

I'm sure this has been covered many times, but I'm hoping someone may be able to confirm, correct, and/or enlighten me about Swelled Butts and Progressive rods.

Basically, I've been fishing Progressive tapers for a while and really enjoy them. In my quest to learn more about bamboo I'm coming across stronger tapers with Swelled Butts that (especially in heavier/longer rods) I find to be especially effective and powerful. Is there a formal name for this kind of taper, and could there be multiple types of tapers within this realm? I'm under the impression that generally these are steeper and quicker, but I wouldn't be surprised if was possible to make a softer rod with a swelled butt.

I may not even be asking the right questions here. Is there a relatively quick reference I could look over to understand these differences more?

Also, are the Swells basically Eastern US style in origin? Could it be said that Progressive rods are more western?

Thank you for any guidance here, I'm preparing to climb to my next plateau. If you think there's other relevant info that I could benefit from I'd be grateful.

Best,
--Dave

[DireWolf53]

Disclaimer: I am neither a rod maker or designer so take my 2 cents for what little it is worth.

It is my understanding that Everett Garrison focused his entire rod making career around perfecting
what we now call a progressive rod. Very simply put the rod flexes evenly down its length as more load
is applied to the cast. He came up with this idea during the years of the great depression. His tapers were perfected by him and others fishing the Catskill rivers and streams. You can't get more Eastern than that!
That being said E C Powell and Winston both were starting out around the same time and independently
of Garrison were making rods that certainly could be called progressive in action.

As far as swelled butts go just look at all the early Leonards and Kosmics from around the turn of the last century again you can't get any more Eastern than that.

Thomas & Thomas Paradigms and Caenis rods come to mind when ever I think of softer rods with a swelled butt. The swell simply seems to push (and quicken) whatever action the rod has further toward the tip of the rod.

I'm sure others with far more knowledge than I have will soon chime in and teach us both a thing or two

[DaveNJ]

Thanks for getting the ball rolling!

[mer]

From a user perspective (not a rodmaker) a swelled butt typically "stops" the flexing, often will make the rod feel a little faster in action (more bend towards the tip, less down low). To the best of my knowledge, there is no one taper name; a swelled butt can be added to any taper. It changes the look and the feel when casting.
An example, I have a Gnomish Rod Works rod based on a PHY Para 15 taper, with a mortised grip. By definition a mortised grip requires a swelled butt. Now a Para 15 is a typical parabolic rod, bends down into the butt section. Don't know how he did it, but Jeff managed to keep the parabolic feeling. No, the rod does not bend under the grip, but it does bend down to the grip in a parabolic manner.

Eastern vs Western: swelled butt is a rodmaker thing I don't think there is any real coast thing here.
Garrison described his rods as Progressive, he's certainly not Western

If you want East vs West, I think as stereotypes, Western rods tend to be more "powerful" designed for bigger water, windier conditions. Eastern rods designed for smaller waters and less wind. But then you start talking about Streamer Rods (like the Payne Canadian Canoe: awesome big fly rod. 7 or 8 wt cast like my Payne 100) used on the bigger lakes and Candian rivers and you can get confused.

I think the best thing to do with bamboo fly rods is don't get hung up on what anyone calls anything. Cast them, on water if you can, as you would use them. You'll probably fall into a "this feels good to me", then learn how to look at numbers and graphs. You'll find out that the type of rod you like has a certain type of graph. Then you can look at the graph of another rod to figure out if you'd like it or not.

Payne rods are my favorite example of this. I like them, they fit my casting and fishing very well. I've had the opportunity to cast a bunch of different ones (some clones, some real) in different sizes. They all have the same general feel. Some a little faster, some a little slower, but overall flex feels the same to me. 7ft4wt model 97 feels very similar to the Payne Candian Canoe (opposite ends of the spectrum).

Above is all my opinion, others may agree, disagree, tell me I'm full of crap, but it is my experience.

[galt]

Adding a swelled butt to a taper effectively stops the felt flexing under the grip and tends to make the rod feel faster and/or more powerful. In a way, it shortens the action length. A taper that is already heavy in the butt will be less affected in feel than one that bends more into the butt. There are differing opinions as to what constitutes a progressive taper and sometimes I think the term is applied to mean the opposite of a faster tip action. The term slow doesn't seem to sell well.

Galt

[mer]

If you can find a copy, pickup "Cane Rods, Tips and Tapers" by Ray Gould. Starting on Pg 88 he has a good section called "Understanding Rod Actions". It's obviously not the final word, but it is a good start and helps one to be consistent in "terminology usage".

[DaveNJ]

If you can find a copy, pickup "Cane Rods, Tips and Tapers" by Ray Gould. Starting on Pg 88 he has a good section called "Understanding Rod Actions". It's obviously not the final word, but it is a good start and helps one to be consistent in "terminology usage".

This is great! Thank you

I feel that I have a fair grasp on it but now I want to start to really dive deep into this stuff. I want to understand step ups vs spiral nodes, swiss ferrules vs pot bellies, pros and cons and applications in impregnating vs varnishing, etc.

Then I want to drop out of life and assist a maker or shop lol. Poor house here I come!

[DireWolf53]

Dave,
If you go to Chris Carlin's site on the main page you will see on the left side of the screen Info & Essays.
Use the pull down menu and you will get a number of options. Rod Action and Speed, Deflection Comparison and Stress Curves are great (IMHO) introductions to these topics. The interactive deflection
graphs are really cool.
Have fun sliding down the rabbit hole. As Grace Slick howled, feed your mind!

http://carlinbamboo.com/index.htm

All the best,
Paul

[DaveNJ]

Much obliged, fellas!

[mer]

And if you go chasing rabbits...

[oddsnrods]

Having made my share of longer handled rods, mentioned in original post, I have come to a one or two conclusions.

I have been making rods as a hobby for long enough to have moved beyond fretting, or even being concerned about terminology or how things 'should be done', although I am very fond of rod making traditions- graphs, deflection charts plus math based taper theory, tend to 'hit the wall behind me'..

I have made some quite 'big' rods with long handles- UK style 10' carp rods, 8' double handed spinning and bait-casting rods, plus latterly double handed spey and switch style rods to 12' , along with quite a few trout rods.

I am now inclined, for all of my rods, to add planed flat strips of bamboo of 1/16" or so, on each of the bamboo strips for the full length of the handle under the corks, in effect double building under the handle. I came upon the need to do this when dismantling a 12' spey rod which I did not like when completed. I salvaged the corks and fittings, yet on 'waggling' the two tip sections thought they would make a decent spinning rod. I started fitting the corks, but noticed the handle section noticeably flexed while simulating casting, which is when I thought of adding extra strips to stiffen it up. It worked very well indeed, so much so that I did the same with a 10' double handed version of an old Hardy Rogue River recently, measured off the original single handed 3 piece, with optional screw-in fighting butt.

Again the results were impressive, six strips were planed down from spares, enamel removed and that face secured with wood glue; thin string wrapped round till dry. Mounted in the lathe, the thickened section would be sanded round (pith side) to reduce the corners of the glued on strips. The corks were then glued on as usual.

Having 'dissected' the handles of broken Hardy Wye, Rogue River and A E Wood rods I found wooden 'sheathes' over the bamboo under the corks which I deduce were there to stiffen the handles, see pictures below.

Swelled butt trout rod handles look pretty, but (although having no experience of making them) I presume quite an amount of extra work is required plus special forms.

Double building under the handle as described, is relatively simple and the strips can be thicker or slimmer as required. The handles on the rods mentioned are not rigid by any means, they just flex less; the resulting rod feels firm and lively in the hand when casting or indeed playing a fish.

Would this be called 'enhanced progressive', I have no idea.

Malcolm

[mer]

malcolm interesting stuff. I think a lot winds up coming around to "what do you like" when you cast a rod, when you fish a rod. Then "how do I describe that feeling".
To me, once a person gets an understanding of a rod graph (dimensions, stresses, etc) that is the starting point. "I like a Payne 100 (7'6" 4wt) so let me graph it compared to a straightline taper". Now take a straight line taper for a nominal 5wt, and apply the Payne 100 deltas to that. If you built that result, you should get something close to "A Payne 100 but as a 5 wt".

The double building under the grip sounds like an alternate way to "stop the action of the rod at the grip". To me it boils down to being able to describe what you are feeling when you cast the rod.
Good stuff.

[oddsnrods]

I should add that the rod action does not stop at the handles which I described, but still carries on through. The bonus being that the added rigidity lower down greatly aids in the casting itself of both artificial lures and fly lines, especially spey style casts as I have found.

Malcolm

[Mrbamboo]

When I was building rods on a mill, we made many models with a swell about 2" before the beginning of the grip. The swell was usually about 3" long from the taper to the end of the swell. The diameter of the swell (distance between flats) was made to allow a consistent the boring of the cork and real seat. The cork could then be tight on the rod, and you only had to turn off the points of the rod to create a round to allow easy gluing of the real seat.

This was attractive back in the early 90's and I thought it began around the time when Tom Moran worked at T&T as their Head Rodmaker.

The swell does make the rod appear to be faster, and out of the many we made with and without swells My Favorite rod was a 5-1/2 foot 2 piece with a swell.

[tapermaker]

what you give as a genesis for swelled butt progressives actually had roots back to the turn of the 20th century. early Leonards, feThomas, Rock swells that were really steep , even grangers and heddons have swells to a lesser extent.