Watched with horror as automatically closing rear hatch bit off the tip top of Fenwick FF70. Only the second rod that I've ever broken, and I didn't even have a fish to blame it on this time. Break is about an inch or a little more down. Could you offer an opinion, please - repair or fish with shortened tip? Would rather repair but likely beyond my pay grade... Can it be done, do you think?

Probably didn't hurt anything but the value. Andy has a nice card with the care and feeding of a glass rod. Top of the list is to break down and tube the rod, no matter how far or how long it will be til used again. I tube mine and leave it strung with the reel sticking out. Now I'm betting that will be the last break in that manner for you.
RFMcD

fish with shortened tip, could not notice the difference on my FFL96-7 now a 93-7..
I nearly threw up when I broke it, was that sick..

at an inch down from the tip, any repair would be
a) difficult
b) likely to change the action even more than the break did..

Skip Morris in "The Custom Graphite Fly Rod, Design & Construction" has a chapter on repairing rods. The repair of a broken tip basically involves putting a sleeve over the break.

Be patient and you can replace the rod, or if luck is with you, find another tip. The last little bit of the tip is important in the overall fishing characteristics of the rod. To me, placing a new tip top is a temporary/emergency repair. Without respacing the other guides, that alone makes it unsatisfactory in the long run although the rod would remain handy as a backup or knockabout--since it has already been knocked about. A repair as described is feasible and relatively easy; it still won't be as original in behavior in casting, mending, setting the hook and so on, but it will be more fishable than it was. If it breaks again at the repair, you aren't any worse off than before the repair.

So you have a fine spectrum of answers to choose from. Here is what I would suggest to decide for your self. First, inspect the break carefully. If there are splinters or cracks extending down the blank, that needs to be considered in the repair, but also in this tryout suggestion. Temporarily, if there is any doubt, reinforce from further splintering/splitting with a few wraps of tape. Now fit a tip top--again just temporarily, using a mild adhesive such as rubber cement that will allow you to pull the tip top right off after the trial.
With this temporary setup, put the rod through your typical casting and fishing routine. If you don't notice any difference or the difference is insignificant to you, that is your answer. Put a new tiptop on and be happy. I know I wouldn't be, definitely without respacing the next 2 or 3 snake guides, which is more trouble than repairing the tip, but none of that might bother you a bit. If you do notice a difference that matters to you, try the repair as described above. It is easy, and you have nothing to lose.

You don't put the whole spring, just a straight section of the spring wire. Many springs have the coils, and then a straight section with a hook. You just cut a hunk out of the straight section. People have a bad habit of making stints too long, you need less than an inch. The last one I did, the spring wire was smaller than the ID of the blank, so I wrapped it with thread. You will never know the difference.

If its just the straight piece of wire 1'' or less long, why not put a SS nail up inside. You could cut it to length and even taper it to fit. Its not going to bend, its just to keep the rod the same length? Correct?

Rather than trying to find a spring of appropriate size, couldn't you just use a piece of music wire? It's tempered and comes in a wide range of diameters and you can usually find it at most hobby shops. Seems like you could easily find the size you are looking for.

david

Yes, wire goes inside if it is too small diameter I wrap it w thread, then epoxy.
Music wire thick enough would work find. Most of us have a hardware store nearby, that is easy for me.

The repair is complete. Thanks to all for the input and recommendations. I am like most of the lurking readers on the site - blessed with 10 thumbs, limited rod-building experience and only basic tools. I don't contribute much since I have so little to contribute, but I do benefit from the discussions that those with great knowledge and experience have in these forums and from the advice that is given so freely on the site when a question is asked.
I only lost an inch of the blank (two inches measuring from the end of the tip top), so maintaining "bend" in the blank wasn't, I thought, much of an issue. Even if piano wire or something really malleable was used, it was going to be epoxied into the blank and would probably wind up stiff as a poker. I had a finishing nail that fit the blank well and that could have been used as a splint if I ground down the head and roughed up the finish, but I was curious about the spring steel and figured that if I had it to play with I could experiment a little and maybe learn something. Chose a spring that was larger and didn't have as tight a coil as a smaller spring (easier to straighten, I figured). The spring steel had a diameter that was smaller than the finishing nail, so I needed to do a thread wrap, tapering the wrap a bit to make it as snug a fit as I could. An issue with the spring was straightening the steel, which had been coiled and had a lot of memory. I wound up boring a small hole in a wood block and drawing the spring wire through it (several times) to try to remove the natural bend. After fiddling with it for quite a while I finally had a reasonably straight section. I wrapped a two-inch section of the steel and lightly epoxied it just to see how it would behave. The next day I had something that might have had a little more life to it than a nail, but in a short length probably wasn't much different.
I used a Dremel cut-off wheel and ultra fine wet/dry sandpaper to clean up the ends of the blank where the break had occurred. I wrapped another section of the straightened spring steel, ground the tips to remove the sharp ends and burrs, and glued it into the broken tip section leaving a half inch exposed. The next day I inserted the half-inch piece into the blank, taped it in place, and lined the rod. There was a difference to the cast, but not much, and I'll really have to fish the rod for a while to identify just what the difference is and whether it matters to me. For now, its close enough to try, so I glued the tip in place. The seam is almost invisible, so I won’t bother with a wrap.
If I’m not satisfied with the rod’s action after fishing it for a while, then next winter I'll cut off the tip at the repair seam, mount a new tiptop at that point, and reposition the guides on the tip section. And I'll cruise the EB ads looking for an FF70 with a trashed butt but good top. (That sentence should probably be rewritten).
After gluing everything up, it occurred to me that the spring steel splint could have been wrapped in “bumps.” Too late to try it, but a thread wrap could have been placed at the ends of the wire section, and then more bumps could have been added along its length, leaving some bare wire exposed between the bumps. If epoxied lightly into the blank, that should have allowed the splint to flex while still gripping the walls of the blank.

good work, and thanks for the update. The problem with all the tip fixes is they will change the action as you note - it's more of a cosmetic fix than a functional one, to my mind.
The idea of wrapping with bumps to leave some flexibility in the spring is a good one. But then the question is matching the bending stiffness of the spring, to the rod.. this way lies madness ;-)

Any time you add anything, guides, ferrules, stints--to a rod you are going to change the action to a certain degree. For better or worse is for you to see. Short rods always end up faster, which I find annoying, plus it drives me nuts having a short tip.
I do have a 4pc, 9ft (was) Sage graphite that broke the tip off basicly flush with the tiptop. I didn't stint that one, so it is now a 8'11" rod haven't fished it in 12 years.

Ha, I enjoy my "old warhorse" rods ( the ones I have repaired, there are a lot of em) more than my nice ones.

I don't worry bout where the bumps are, I wrap the length of the wire, I would not leave a gap, I don't clean up the break, having some splinters to work the epoxy in is good as far as I am concerned, make a stronger bond.

Hey, this repair is what they did to my leg a three years ago!! I fell down the mountain (long story) and they put a rod in my bone( and some screws and plates). It did change the flex some, but it stil work just fine