Roger Fairfield rodmaker by Joe Beelart

Originally written by me and some friends 2002-04 for the Virtual Fly Shop, Flyfisherman Magazine Online. The Cracker Barrel has been published in book form with the limited first edition hard cover sold out and a paperback version will be available early 2011.

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Roger Fairfield rodmaker by Joe Beelart

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Welcome to the Cracker Barrel. Last week we brought you the second installment about contemporary makers by Joe Beelart, which was about rod restorationist and maker John DeNoma. For those that remember there were 13 Cracker Barrels written by myself and several Bobs (members of the Brothers of Bamboo) on the old VFS Board.
These can be found from this link http://www.flyfisherman.com/wa....html which is available on my website http://mysite.verizon.net/vze2....html unfortunately the Cracker Barrel Links do not include the discussions that occurred after the initial posting which often ended up being as informative as the Cracker Barrel post since much discussion followed. The Cracker Barrel was originally formed from ideas posted on the old VFS Board in 2002 and one of those suggestions was for articles about bamboo rods, their makers, history and tapers be presented in such a manner as to be informative and educational.
It would also allow for questions about the postings content to be discussed and as I said often ended up segueing into the next segment or becoming an offshoot of the post. This third, and final, segment written by Joe is from a day he spent with rod maker Roger Fairfield at his shop where he interviewed John about his building rods. As always please feel free to ask questions but in this case if they are directed toward Joe Beelart I can't answer for him directly and will try to direct them to him but cannot guarantee an answer as quickly as I could give you on a subject I can answer to since Joe's job has him traveling a lot. This will be the only real departure for these initial segments and I hope you understand. Well the coffee pot has gotten my attention telling me the Costa Rican Peaberry is ready so while I stoke the old pot bellied stove and pour myself a cup why don't I let you enjoy the Cracker Barrel.
Roger Fairfield On a clear, crisp day in early October, I visited maker Roger Fairfield at his house located a little, as little is little in the West, west of Sisters, Oregon. Roger enjoys making bamboo rods and as a retired electrical engineer, he considers technical matters in the craft that others may overlook. However, he was quick to note that he doesn't believe in "reinventing the wheel." He says there's a sizeable amount of valuable, tested information about bamboo on the Internet and in print. He uses that information, his background and one reference manual to make rods. The manual is Wayne Cattanach's first small, ring-bound folio. One pleasant thing about Roger Fairfield is that he's an experimenter. He actually does what many other builders profess to do. He tries things out, and then, most importantly, he takes his trials from his workshop to the water. He fish tests his work. Proud of the wear stains found when he untubes rod number 033. Number 033 looked used and should have. "I've had that rod out 70 days on the river," he said. "I finished it in December 2001." 70 days on the water in 10 months? Yes, number 033 is probably a successful taper, a successful Fairfield experiment. Roger learned to fly fish with his father and in the Boy Scouts, using bamboo in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. He said he pretty much destroyed his tackle through vigorous, enthusiastic use. He continued to fly fish for 40 years using fiberglass and later graphite rods, wrapping many examples of both types of blanks over the years. Always interested in bamboo, in 1994, he refinished a rod for a co-worker. Then, he decided to try fishing bamboo rods. Roger found an old 9-weight bamboo rod that he refinished and cast with much satisfaction. In 1996, he started building bamboo rods. His first was a 7-½ foot Powell-like taper. He said that after Number 001, he was hooked. He built a rod a month "the hard way" for the first year, and then settled down a bit on his production schedule. He says it takes him 15-20 hours to complete a rod. His goal is a completion time of 10-12 hours. Roger cuts no corners in the process. He takes his time and is thoroughly prepared when he starts a rod. He uses off the shelf seats, guides and ferrules. Roger acknowledges that his wraps and finish are basic, but very serviceable. He makes only one-tipped rods. In a rather rhetorical manner, he asked, "How many broken tips have you seen? They can be replaced." He then mentioned that a well-prepared fly fisherman should rarely make a long trip without a backup rod. Roger said he's only broken one tip and that happened just up the road on the Metolius. He built a "Dolly" rod for Dolly Varden or Bull Trout - the big wild char that live in the Metolius River; fish that snicker at just about everything a fly fisherman offers them. Roger's Metolius "Dolly" rod is an 8 ½' for a 7-weight line. He has no real data on the rod. He just designed it and used it. He showed the rod to me. The wraps were a basic and rather bright red with some green, blue and red fancy work. The spar varnish finish was very plain, but long lasting and functional. It was an experiment. It didn't have to look good, the rod had to fish. Roger made it with a hollow butt section and ever the optimist, in anticipation of great sport, he mounted the grip with a fighting butt! It has no serial number. He said a 29" 9-pound Metolius River Dolly shattered the rod's first tip. Roger has just completed serial number 039. Recently, Roger released three rods for sale at very modest prices. The day prior in a Sisters fly-fishing shop I saw one priced at $500. He's given one to a county fair church raffle and one to a hospice raffle. The rest of the 39 were experiments or rods made for use mainly for use. He still has rod number 001 and when the opportunity arose, he brought it out of storage area to show me. It was completed in May 1997 while he was still living in California. Roger said he could hardly wait to try it and try it he did on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River. He said the rod has a slower action than many and is reminiscent of a Walton Powell taper. In the same PVC tube was rod number 005, completed in 1997. It was a 9' for 5-weight line. Roger amusingly said that it also casts a 7-weight or 8-weight line. Roger used the following words to describe old number 5. "Lousy design." "Doesn't cast well." "Incredibly slow." "Disaster in function." "Fished it only four days." "Fatigue factor." I must admit, by the time he finished talking about old number 5, all I wanted to do was take it fishing, with three different line weights, and test the experiment on my own. Roger pointed out that he knew the rod was something of a trial while he was making it. Glue lines weren't unobtrusive and the finish work was rather basic. In fact, it was the first bamboo rod I've seen with Flex-Coat sealing really bright blue wraps. Finish is not the point. The point is that Roger tried something different and was willing to take a chance with his time. He experimented. Some experiments work, others don't. Many bamboo rod makers follow a pattern or a book to achieve some modicum of success every time. Does a person learn that way? Are those rods better than number 005?Roger made another point about his "experimental" rods. He says he hangs on to them. He knows them and when he's working on a taper revision, or other innovation, he has them to test, to remind himself of history. Back he went into the storage area. When he came out, he had the rod tube for number 021, his "New Zealand Express!" He made it for a trip to New Zealand in 2000. It's a Paul Young parabolic taper for a DT7F line. He quietly said that he caught a 27" rainbow, plus other big fish with the rod on his trip to New Zealand. By now, Roger saw me making a big smile with every rod he produced from storage. He also suspected why. Roger makes his own rod bags from household sheets, producing rod bags with a truly eclectic variety of colors, patterns and textures, yet very practical in use. He glumly noted that his wife insisted on making the rod bags for his sale and donation rods. From a large diameter PVC tube wrapped with duct tape for reinforcement and handles, and with markings indicating it was a rod storage bag for airplane trips, Roger produced rod 011. He said he experimented heavily with tapers until number 011, which he made in March 1998. He rather liked the action. He says number 011 has a soft tip and butt, but that it also has a bit of a stiff mid-section. It tends to cast like graphite, yet has the slightly slower "real" feel of bamboo. The rod is a 7' 4-weight based on a Young parabolic taper, but with somewhat of a stiffer tip. He says that since number 011 he uses this pattern, with variations, in about 90% of his rods. Carefully, Roger then uncased another rod, an old well-used bamboo rod that was his father's rod. After his father was gone, the rod suffered the ravages of time. It lay in the damp basement of his brother's house in Seattle for over 20 years, with no bag and no cap, guides rusting, wraps disintegrating. The rod has no maker's mark. Roger believed it to be one of his later tackle additions, possibly bought in the 1950's in Berkeley, California. It has green spiral wraps through all the sections, running about an inch apart. It also has what appears to be a plastic reel seat. If one looks deeply, the bamboo itself is in surprisingly good condition. Due to the rod's history, Roger continues to search for its maker. Sometime about this time, I noticed that Roger had a foreshortened finger. He said he'd cut it off trying to make a wood planing form. Bamboo and the tools that work it are sharp. Safety is always first. Anyway, this little aside led Roger to suggest we look into his main shop. We had been examining rods on his 30' workbench in the front of his garage. The cane rack was also in the garage, on an overhead suspension rack. He said it was good cane, all check split. Roger said he doesn't mind the extra expense of visiting his cane dealer and "cherry picking." He said he ran the numbers; rods expected to be made vs. a waste factor combined with a maker's torment factor. The numbers were telling. The extra expense, in Roger's experienced opinion, was OK. Roger said that after considering grower's marks, natural problems and shipping damage, he considers the power fibers of his selections. He said that 80-100 thousands are adequate to build a 4 or 5-weight bamboo rod. For higher line weights, he tags prime culms. He says that for the mid-weight rods, taking off 10 thousandths of power fibers, is no problem. I imagined the jocularity of his cane vendor as Roger perused raw stock, steely eyed and micrometer in hand! I quickly considered Roger's earlier comments. He wants to experiment, but he also wants consistency. One of the primary considerations in experimentation and quality control is reducing the number of variables. Selection of proper components, such as cane, is one of the most important considerations in bamboo rod making.
Roger's Shop Roger's workshop is a spacious, clean and well-lighted place with an electric space heater hung high on the far wall. Roger said it made the shop comfortable at about 55 degrees, and it was easy to get it up to 60-65 for work during the winter months. There was no clutter. The place was a place of precision; with the debris of bamboo rod making swept away or allowed to stay only because, as with glue droppings, it was too difficult to remove. Roger's workshop was organized; almost a model shop, unaffected by the work performed within. I saw none of the "stuff" one sees on workshop walls. The white walls reflected light, removing many shadows from work areas. Windows were large and well placed; the shop was expertly planned, laid out in a reflection of Roger's engineering days. We didn't talk about splitting and the other preliminary work in making a rod. Roger showed me his sanders, but spent little time talking about them. He uses both a belt and hand sander. He said they were labor and time savers. He showed me his Morgan style hand mill. He was rather proud of it; it was a retirement present to himself. He said the trick to using the mill was to get the enamel side of the cane flat. Roger still uses his planes and wooden forms for some of the tapering work. He has 5' fine taper form. We looked at his finishing stations. As mentioned earlier, he uses a Minwax Helmsman spray-on spar varnish. He recognizes there may be other alternatives in the "next step" of bamboo rod making. He uses a little piece of special cloth to "wipe on" his finish. He can wipe on for 2-3 coats without discoloration or runs. Then, he uses very fine steel wool to polish between coats. He says "it flows on" and it gives a good, repeatable finish. Then, he sprays on a fairly heavy coat of spar varnish, and turns the rod in the rod-wrapping lathe with the dryer motor to prevent runs. Roger said he long considered a dip tube for finishing, but decided the quantities, space considerations and temperature control, replenishment and general expense as just too much for his current operation. Through experiment, he found his thread wrapping lathe was the exact tool he need for hand finishing in a repeatable manner. Roger says he can easily check hexes on the lathe and in roughly 2 hours determine when the next coat, or a sanding and refinish are due. He showed me his wrapping apparatus. He said that the biggest factor to consider, however basic it may seem, is to not twist the six little pieces that makeup a tip section. He also said he has actually seen butt sections delaminated through excessive heat while straightening after glue-up. I was surprised about how Roger obtained his binder. Just weeks ago, in September 2002, Jerry Foster, from mid-California and renowned bamboo rod website maestro, gave Roger a rod binder. They met when Jerry attended the Metolius Fly and Bamboo Rod Fair in early August. Finding that Roger didn't have a binder, Jerry made a second trip to Oregon in September to fish and to give Roger a spare binder from his shop. Prior to that, for 39 rods, Roger used his wrapping machine tension adjusted for binding thread, or he did it simply "by hand." He said gluing made a mess of his wrapping machine and that gluing by hand "just made a mess all over." He was appreciative of Jerry's benevolence. I told Roger that we were lucky at the Metolius Fair. Jerry Foster spent the night at our camp. Around the fire, Steve Kiley, Tim Stoltz and Jerry talked things bamboo into the night. Roger said he wished he could have been there. I told Roger, "Consider yourself invited next year." I knew the others would enjoy his company and conversation. However, next year, after the fair, I'm going to bundle up, go down by the river and just enjoy myself. I don't think I can handle quadraphonic taper talk, no matter how good the fire, how learned the professors.Concerns and Serial Numbers The interview was winding down. Roger had covered a lot of ground with the articulate detail of his engineering experience. He asked me if I had any questions. I went over the basic list, wondering if he had anything to add. He thought a minute and with careful, limited precision, he said he thought he might contribute to taper development. He said that he had already concluded there was a critical diameter in a taper below which a bamboo rod will take a set quicker and from which it would be less likely to recover. Rod weight and action is affected by critical diameter. He knows this is a topic in the trade, but apparently it has not been quantified. Roger says that he enjoys evaluating tapers using Cattanach and the Garrison stress curves. He says he also uses an on-line bamboo rod computer stress program. Again, he mentioned the plentiful resources available on the Internet and in print. With these tools, he computes stress curves and rod dimensions. He says that it is fun to discover "how to do this stuff better." For some reason, I could feel a book coming out of Roger's shop someday. In regards to making a bamboo rod, he looked about the room. Nothing really held his eye. He thought a bit longer, thinking of all his experimental rods. Finally he said, "Straighten, straighten, straighten." Those were his final words on making, for today anyway. Next he mentioned what he saw as problems with bamboo rods. They are heavy when they get big. Roger says, "Casting a big rod all day tires a person out." When they are just light enough, they are the finest fly rods a person can use, but there is an upper, practical limit to their use. Roger said people are concerned about cost. In his mind and experience, he thought the general buy in point for bamboo is about $500. He has tried to gear his making toward that price point, but Roger said no matter what the price, he has to be happy with the results. That price also requires only one tip is supplied with a rod. It's a price where fit and finish must be durable, functional, and beautiful, and not require excessive shop time. Roger's serial number system is very simple and noted in small neat lettering on each rod, in addition to the considerable entries in his record book. Adjacent hexes display the serial number of the rod, the completion date, Roger's name and finally, a little notation about taper and line weight. Contact Roger Fairfield
69793 Pine Glen Road
Sisters, OR 97759
541-549-6417
rfairfield@bendcable.com Well the old coffee pot is empty, as Bob Corsetti always says at the end of his catalog, and I'm packing one of my pipes and a wee dram of Lagavulin to celebrate Joes fine writing; as always I await your questions and comments. Thanks once again for asking for the return of the Cracker Barrel and I hope you'll join us next week. As I stated last week be sure to stay tuned because I have it on pretty good authority that one of the forums writers is braving the elements on snowshoes to visit a maker who has worked with a past master and worked with bamboo for almost 50 years…. Spring's almost here.

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