"Breaking News" Orvis grapite blanks built by Shakespeare

[sweetandsalt]

I am copy/pasting this response from the excellent 50 Year Anniversary of Graphite thread because of the never-before-known, at least by me information below. I'm leaving our Forum now to contact Orvis Customer Service...I'll be back...

"The Shakespeare research and development team was performing experiments with graphite in the early 1970's when the material was first made available to the industry. However, at that time, graphite sold at $1,500.00 per pound. Henry Shakespeare was able to get his hands on some of the new material at no cost from a friend in the industry, and this provided them with enough graphite to complete a few prototype rods.

.... and by 1975, Shakespeare was producing its own "Graphlite" fly rod as well as supplying the Orvis Company of Manchester Vermont with graphite blanks for their own series of graphite rods."

This is news to me! I was under the impression that Orvis had commenced to build their own graphite blanks in 1975. I drove up to Manchester, VT in '75 to cast these rods on their pond and was so impressed. Come to think of it, perhaps I should not be surprised as Orvis was sourcing rather than building their fiberglass and unidirectional E-glass blanks from, I believe, 3M.

 

[ibookje]

Wow shocking news!

 

[littledavid123]

I guess my old Far & Fine rod is actually a Shakespeare...Interesting.

Dave

 

[flytie09]

Maybe so.....

Shakespeare History - Bamboo Part 110 - volume 5 week 25

"Simpson Electronics was acquired in 1974 for the production of depthfinders, and by 1975, Shakespeare was producing its own "Graphlite" fly rod as well as supplying the Orvis Company of Manchester Vermont with graphite blanks for their own series of graphite rods, during the short period in which Orvis converted its fiberglass rod facility to graphite rod production."

 

[flyminded]

Maybe so.....

Shakespeare History - Bamboo Part 110 - volume 5 week 25

"Simpson Electronics was acquired in 1974 for the production of depthfinders, and by 1975, Shakespeare was producing its own "Graphlite" fly rod as well as supplying the Orvis Company of Manchester Vermont with graphite blanks for their own series of graphite rods, during the short period in which Orvis converted its fiberglass rod facility to graphite rod production."

Seems to me the key words are “during the short period”.

 

[flytie09]

Fisher Rod Co. and Fenwick were known to sell graphite blanks to Orvis during this early period also. Should this necessarily be a bad thing?

ft09

 

[sweetandsalt]

Most are aware that JK Fisher built the blanks for both Winston and Scott for years. Latter, Winston sourced their famous IM6 blanks from G.Loomis as did the high end LL Bean green rods of the late 1990's. I believe Tom Morgan Rodsmiths blanks are built by Burkheimer. The thing is, these and the many companies who import their rods from S.Korea acknowledge their sourcing while Orvis's (young) Cust. Serv. doubted the veracity of Shakespeare sourcing and "is looking into it" but has yet to get back to me.

 

[mikechell]

It's a global economy ... has been for decades. The fact that few companies make ALL the components that go into their products always seems to surprise people. I don't understand the mentality that allows one to delude themselves that "Made in America" is the same as 100% American made.

Same goes for this topic. Does anyone actually care who made the blanks over 45 years ago? How many actually care who made the blanks THIS year? And if you DO care ... why? Will you take that rod back if you find out it's not made by the company who's name is on it?

 

[sweetandsalt]

"Does anyone actually care who made the blanks over 45 years ago? How many actually care who made the blanks THIS year? And if you DO care ... why? Will you take that rod back if you find out it's not made by the company who's name is on it?"

I care because the blank is where the "art" is. And, in those historically significant, in terms of fly rods, days of the late 70's early 80's who did what formed a foundation for what was to come. And I'm taking about creative rod design and material applications not specifically where the parts and materials are sourced from.

 

[Lewis Chessman]

Same goes for this topic. Does anyone actually care who made the blanks over 45 years ago? How many actually care who made the blanks THIS year? And if you DO care ... why?

Speaking purely for myself; I enjoy fly fishing. I enjoy different fly rods. I enjoy history. I enjoy fly fishing rod history. Simple.

It may be of no interest to you mikechell, but there is a story behind these rods. It involves politics, economics, science, industrial espionage, the Cold War and the Space Race. And fly fishing rods.

Each to his own, but it fascinates me. Hence my interest for one.

 

[Lewis Chessman]

On the Happy 50th Birthday thread Flytie09 posted a link to a Shakespeare history thread.
The Ugly Stick and the story behind the naming of the best selling rod of all time

Graphite was very expensive; in the beginning it was about $400 per pound and glass was about $.50 per pound. Shakespeare was noted for white rods with spiral markings and our marketing group perceived that Fenwick, Garcia, Wright McGill, and others had an advantage as to styling and cosmetics on fishing rods. These competitors all used a preimpregnated material and made rods by a cut and roll process. Shakespeare's quality rods were made with an internal spiral fiberglass core and parallel glass fibers impregnated with pigmented polyester resin .The method to make them was referred to as the Howald process. Both processes used a clear film like tape on top of the impregnated material, wound in several layers to apply pressure to the laminate while curing in an oven. Shakespeare removed the tape with high pressure water jets. Other rod makers removed tape by un-winding and surface sanding or simply by sanding away the tape. Shakespeare's rods were left with spiral markings on the surface while our competitor's rods had sanded smooth coated surfaces. The most important project request from marketing to engineering was to make our rods look better which included sanded smooth surfaces and colors other than white.

(My italics/underscore)

Was this why the Orvis 'Graphite' series have the spiral 'ribbing' running up the unsanded blank? Because they were made by Shakespeare using their clear film wrapping method?
The People demand to know the Truth!

 

[moucheur2003]

On the Happy 50th Birthday thread Flytie09 posted a link to a Shakespeare history thread.
The Ugly Stick and the story behind the naming of the best selling rod of all time

(My italics/underscore)

Was this why the Orvis 'Graphite' series have the spiral 'ribbing' running up the unsanded blank? Because they were made by Shakespeare using their clear film wrapping method?
The People demand to know the Truth!

It may have been that way in the beginning, if indeed Shakespeare made the first Orvis blanks. But the process wasn't unique to Shakespeare. Orvis continued to produce the same tape-wrap finish long after they brought the manufacturing in-house. Other builders also used the same method, including Scott and Diamondback. I've got a tape-wrap Diamondback Carbonite and a tape-wrap Orvis from the early 1990s.

 

[Lewis Chessman]

Fisher Rod Co. and Fenwick were known to sell graphite blanks to Orvis during this early period also. Should this necessarily be a bad thing?

ft09

Another cross-over between the UK 50th Birthday thread and this ..... On post 25 Dingley has posted two pages from James Hardy's book 'The House that Hardy Built'. The crux of it is:

No date given: "Hardys were still selling direct to Abercrombie & Fitch and to Wm. Mills, NY."
1969: ''I (Jim Hardy) was sent over to Los Angeles with Jon to visit Fishers to find out if it would be possible to build and run (a blank-making facility) at Alnwick. In 1969, the Hardy board drew up an agreement with J. Kennedy Fisher Inc. which resulted in a highly successful joint venture between the two companies which lasted nearly 20 years. Hardys' new sister company was named Fibatube ...."
('Jon' is Jon E. Tarantino, I deduce)
I'm not directly suggesting a Fibatube/Fisher link to American built rods but thought the connection between the two companies interesting and wonder what this ''joint venture'' was?

And no, no bad thing in my book, ft09 - 'A rose is arose is a rose', after all.

 

[sweetandsalt]

It may have been that way in the beginning, if indeed Shakespeare made the first Orvis blanks.

Moucheur, I am waiting (with follow-up messages) for a Rod Shop confirmation through Orvis Cust. Serv. on the historical data stemming from Lewis's 50th Anniversary thread regarding this Shakespeare sourcing. Do you have a higher-up resource in the Company that you might be able to get charity from?

 

[sweetandsalt]

OK, I have senior and smart Orvis Cust. Serv. person on this fact checking mission now and we should have confirming data one way or the other within a day or two.

 

[sweetandsalt]

"It turns out the group in GB got it correct about Shakespeare making our very first graphite blanks. They supplied us from 1973 through the spring of 1975. We began building graphite blanks in 1975. Howard Steere was plant manager and Jim West was our first graphite rod builder so he would have pioneered those early blanks produced in-house after '75.

Hope that helps clear everything up for your Forums."


Warm regards, (two helpful representative from) Orvis Outfitter Specialists

So you see, sometimes manufacturer's represnetives do visit our Form.

My follow up inquired about actual release of graphite rods as I remembered it being 1975 and we belive from accepted "history" that Fenwick was first with commercial graphite introductions in 1973 (spinning rods) and fly rods in 1974.

"You may be remembering an ad campaign touting our “new” graphite rods made entirely in-house. This is all before my time with the company but the rod shop tells me that we received graphite blanks from Shakespeare from 1973 through early 1975. There may not have been any rods released for sale in ’73 but I believe there were certainly rods sold in ’74.

I will continue to look into this and if I can come up with any additional information I’ll send it along to you. Orvis"

Will we experience graphite fly rod historical revision? Will it come down to the specific date of release between HMG and Far&Fine? Stay tuned.

 

[ia_trouter]

My spin is it sounds like Shakespeare made some fine blanks for the era. I don't recall reading many complaints of early Orvis graphite rods here or anywhere else.

 

[sweetandsalt]

ia_ When I was a kid, I used to lust over the Shakespeare Wonderrod catalog. No doubt they were a plastic rod leader in their day...now they are just another Chinese made "brand" under the auspices of a big corporation, like Pflueger and so many of our old great names. None of this is the point, we are not talking about "fishing" or good or bad here but history. As I wrote earlier, in 1975 I purposely drove up to Manchester just to see and cast these new graphite rods. I own a number of early Orvis graphite's. The lore is that Orvis rolled their own from the get go but now, Lewis's data from his Anniversary thread is no, Shakespeare made the earliest Orvis blanks...news to me and many others I suspect, including the senior Orvis Customer Service personnel that have assisted me in confirming this information.

 

[edreilly]

This thread really epitomizes two things about this forum

1. We are such nerds

2. I love that we are nerds

The fact that we can get animated about the newest new rod, and who rolled what blank before I was born (1975) shows the range of our interest on all things fly rods.

Very cool. Thanks to all who participate, and in this case, for Orvis answering our nerdy historical question.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[westcoast]

I can see the old tape marks on my vintage Shakespeare rod. Still performs well.