A little history lesson

[surfwalker]

Stripercoast1, Great story, thanks, I look forward to many more.

[Stripercoast1]

The biggest detail that needs to be understood, is that the technology of that period was no where near what it is today. To put it into perspective, you still had to rent your rotary phone from AT&T back then.
The blanks were thickly walled and heavy. The lighter of the 2 brands sold through Murats was the old Brown and original Lami's. Theses blanks offered more actions, and lengths, but were less popular in the lighter end of the models, because most guy's equated weight with strength and power. An attitude that is still pervasive with my personal choices. I don't own a salt water graphite rod. Not in surf anyway. I fish with guy's half my age that can't concieve of casting one of my old brownies with 3 ounce plugs all night.
The guy's that preferred the Harnells, for the most part, were the sand spikers. The longer blanks in the 12 foot range, could handle the really heavy stuff with relative ease. 8 ounces of lead and a whole herring or pogie, would reach the second bar with consistancy with a 705, or 6 hanging from the seat. From my memory, and experiance, you would have 3 or 4 Harnells soaking a bait in the spikes, and using a 10 or 11 foot Lami to throw metal lips while waiting for a pick up on one of the bait rods.
The lami's were also the preffered choice of the conventional casting guy's, with Penn squidders in the seat. The actions of these blanks allowed a more powerfull load up in order to reach a far off blitz with a 4 or 5 ounce pencil or polaris popper. The line of choice early on was either tarred cotton (the real old timers), or nylon squidding line. Mono was occaisionally used, but unless you were really familiar with it, birds nests would cause you to switch out the reel, in order to clean it out later. Most of the guy's I knew back then had smooth thumbs having burned their prints right off from thumbing the cast. I still use a 12 foot brownie with a Penn Squdder loaded with 65 lb Power Pro.
There were 2 choices of guides back then. Pacific Bay made, and still makes, a stainless ringed V braced surf guide, with chrome plating for wear resistance. Mildrum made both surf and casting guides, with Stainless frames and carbide rings. The carbide was 100 times more wear resistant, but way more expensive. Most guy's opted for the Pac Bays with a carbide tip from mildrum, as the tip took more of the line wear punishment than the rest of the guides. The prefered conventional built was all mildrum carbides. It was felt that the Mildrum was a strong frame, and the squidding line would wear through the entire run of guides more than the spinning set ups with mono.

More to come.

[stripermania]

What a great story. You are a one of the lucky ones to learn while you were young. It is something that like you said becomes an art which you love. Can't wait for more details from a expert with timeless knowledge.

[clamchucker]

The biggest detail that needs to be understood, is that the technology of that period was no where near what it is today. To put it into perspective, you still had to rent your rotary phone from AT&T back then.

A gentleman who remembers the rotary phones is someone I am comfortable with. Thank you for the great memories back in time, Striper.

[Stripercoast1]

Thanks for the kuddo's guy's, the knowledge was passed on to me, so as my old mentor told me, It's my duty to pass it on. If any of this drival helps even one person, I've accomplished something.
Back to the story.

The production process of the customs back then was of course based on the equipment. Actions tended to be stiffer, and the guides of the day were big. The length of the feet were up to 5 times what a modern guide is today. When you wrapped these guides onto the blank, they would then create a section where the blank was braced. In other words the action was deadened at that location. ( I promise pictures soon) Generally less guides were used overall, and it was uncommon to see a rod with more than 5 guides, 4 was the norm, and some bait heavers on the Cape used no more than 3. We're talking about 11 or 12 foot rods here. Shops put out what they called a canal special, a 10 foot rod with 4 guides, on a heavy action blank. Usually a 12 footer cut down 16 inches from the tip, and 8 from the butt. They were more like broom handles, than glass rods, as the folks that fished the canal then, weren't worried so much with casting distance as they were with beating a fish in a 10 to 15 knot current. Canal guy's usually spooled with a minimum of 30 lb test, the average used 40. Canal rods usually had more butt wrap as well to stiffen the portion of the rod just above the reel seat for even more lifting power.

With the advent of new materials, such as rings that resist wear, and 2 part epoxies, many of the issues with older rods are now almost exstinct. It was common for a custom rod to be rebuilt, accourding to how much seasonal use it got, every 2 years. Murats made their winter money doing axactly that. The old thread coatings, the most common being Gudebrod, would deteriorate after just a season or 2 of hard use, and guides would break at the welds, or groove from the line abrasion. It was a simple task to run a razor blade flat along the blank and strip out all the guides in less than 5 minutes. A light touch with 200 grit sand paper and the blank would look like it had never been wrapped. In a matter of an hour or less, the rod was re-guided and ready for use. New method building, takes at least 2 hours to accomplish just 1 broken guide to be replaced.

Pictures coming soon guy's, I'll try to get them up today. I have an old brownie still in its original built form that I am going to be stripping for a restoration re-build. It will clear up a lot of confusion anyone may have.

[Stripercoast1]

Picture time.

The old wire ringed guides, Mildrum braced were easily identified by the U shaped brace, while the Pac Bays have the V shaped bracing.
They both did an unbraced version that allowed a little bit more flexability to the rod. Although the weight differance added by the brace was virtually non existant, some guy's went that route thinking that it added weight to the rod.

[Stripercoast1]

Graphite reel seats were yet to be developed yet, and all seat were metal. They had 2 knurled rings to tighten the reel seat. Charlie felt that these rings should be at the top of the seat, in the down locking position, so that contact with the wrist during fishing wouldn't loosen them to allow the reel to fall out of the seat. It was a common source of disagreement between Dave and his Father in law. It helps me identify the age of a Murat rod when I find one at a yard sale or flea market. When Charlie passed on, Dave went to the up lock mounting position under the reel.

[Stripercoast1]

Changing the action of a blank by wrapping thread at the butt section above the forward grip was at one time nothing more than a run of thread covering the distance up the blank you wanted to stiffen. In a production situation, getting fancy wasn't a way to turn out a bunch of rods. Some butt wraps can take 18 hours.
My opinion is that life is way to short to fish an ugly rod. Heres a few butt wraps done for both looks and performance. The top 2 are single axis, or exist top and bottom of the rod, the lower one is double axis, with the diamonds existing on all 4 sides of the blank. Yeah, thats an Ugly Stick in the background of the 1st picture, it's the rod I loan out when I take a newb along.