peterstaud - in the last several years that Russ Peak had his shop on Hill Ave in Pasadena, I would go hang out there while waiting for my daughter, who was attending CalTech just across Colorado Blvd. A couple of buds out here on the East Coast were very good customers of Russ and had various rods in process or repair, so I would check on them while I was visiting Russ and maybe move them along a bit. Russ had a hefty backlog.
His shop was full of long blanks, most of them glass, back from the days when he was designing the blanks and mandrels so Conolon or whoever could roll them.
Russ liked to ramble about short ferrules and different glass cloth patterns, and it's too bad I didn't know enough to learn anything.
About the same time, I struck up a series of conversations with Kerry (and wife) and Robert Sigman on taper design. Robert does magnificent hollow cane rods, and Kerry was into plastic, but it was amazing how similarly certain rods felt during casting (such at the Ed Rice San Mateo shows). When I pointed this out to them and asked if they collaborated, they scratched their heads and said not really, though they knew a bit about each other.
Kerry ended up with the shop's blanks after the shop closed and Russ passed. I don't know if he is rolling any new glass. I assume that he is slowly and judiciously using up Russ's inventory.
Some of the facilities that did and could have done the blanks have closed, burned down, or otherwise become unavailable. Also, some materials, like phenolics, have fallen out of commercial use, due to toxicity concerns, whatever.
tl les
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