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Whipped Tip

Bob Gill

Bob Gill

Administrator
Staff member
Small visual aid with whipping thread.


IMG_1551 crop 800.jpg
 
I like that. Sight tip for life. I occasionally have to rub some of mine (painted) back and re do them because of the occasional chip….. wouldn’t have that problem with a whipped tip. Nice!!!
 
Richard Isaacs said:
I like that. Sight tip for life. I occasionally have to rub some of mine (painted) back and re do them because of the occasional chip….. wouldn’t have that problem with a whipped tip. Nice!!!
Click to expand...
Relatively easy to do and you can use other colours. Protected by one coat of rod thread epoxy. May yellow with time but easy to renew.
Could also use white thread as a under layer for shrink wrap/isotope.

Cheers
Bob
 
It may sound 'Philistinian' but .... I've been using fluorescent tape (eBay), overwrapped with standard Sellotape, around some of my rod tips for the last couple of seasons. They've been fine, I just renewed the Sellotape in the close-season.
 
Bob Gill said:
Relatively easy to do and you can use other colours. Protected by one coat of rod thread epoxy. May yellow with time but easy to renew.
Could also use white thread as a under layer for shrink wrap/isotope.

Cheers
Bob
Click to expand...

Hi Bob,

I was going to start a new thread but seems you are the man to ask! I have cracked yet another isotope on one of my flood rods and simply don't know what else I can do to prevent it from happening. It doesn't seem to take much of a bend in the rod end to crack the bloody things 🤬 although it has never happened due to playing a fish. It always happens when I grab the line to pull it down a bit to remove weed or slide a float stop up etc, they crack after very little pressure applied in all instances.

I know the easy thing to say is don't grab the line and pull the rod tip round 😅 but with every will in the world I will forget at some point and do it and no doubt crack the isotope again.

What's really annoying is that when I got my Freespirit Hi-S 2lb TC rods a couple of years back, I had isotopes fitted to the end of the rods, tips painted white and isotope whipped over the top, these have never broken despite some serious bendage in the rods and I treat them just the same as the flood rods. But the isotopes on the 2.5lb TC Dark Carbons just won't last. The last attempt we did (I am having a professional rod builder do these for me btw), as per your suggestion we whipped the end of the rod, under the isotope, and then whipped the isotope on top of the extra whipping. It's that one that cracked again last week 😭

So I'm at a loss as to how I can fix isotopes on the end of these rods in a way they won't crack 🤔
 
Rob Paylor said:
Hi Bob,

I was going to start a new thread but seems you are the man to ask! I have cracked yet another isotope on one of my flood rods and simply don't know what else I can do to prevent it from happening. It doesn't seem to take much of a bend in the rod end to crack the bloody things 🤬 although it has never happened due to playing a fish. It always happens when I grab the line to pull it down a bit to remove weed or slide a float stop up etc, they crack after very little pressure applied in all instances.

I know the easy thing to say is don't grab the line and pull the rod tip round 😅 but with every will in the world I will forget at some point and do it and no doubt crack the isotope again.

What's really annoying is that when I got my Freespirit Hi-S 2lb TC rods a couple of years back, I had isotopes fitted to the end of the rods, tips painted white and isotope whipped over the top, these have never broken despite some serious bendage in the rods and I treat them just the same as the flood rods. But the isotopes on the 2.5lb TC Dark Carbons just won't last. The last attempt we did (I am having a professional rod builder do these for me btw), as per your suggestion we whipped the end of the rod, under the isotope, and then whipped the isotope on top of the extra whipping. It's that one that cracked again last week 😭

So I'm at a loss as to how I can fix isotopes on the end of these rods in a way they won't crack 🤔
Click to expand...
My initial thought is, use a shorter, or two shorter, isotopes (but then I don't know how long your isotopes are ...but I do know they don't bend well 🤔 )
 
Rob Paylor said:
Hi Bob,

I was going to start a new thread but seems you are the man to ask! I have cracked yet another isotope on one of my flood rods and simply don't know what else I can do to prevent it from happening. It doesn't seem to take much of a bend in the rod end to crack the bloody things 🤬 although it has never happened due to playing a fish. It always happens when I grab the line to pull it down a bit to remove weed or slide a float stop up etc, they crack after very little pressure applied in all instances.

I know the easy thing to say is don't grab the line and pull the rod tip round 😅 but with every will in the world I will forget at some point and do it and no doubt crack the isotope again.

What's really annoying is that when I got my Freespirit Hi-S 2lb TC rods a couple of years back, I had isotopes fitted to the end of the rods, tips painted white and isotope whipped over the top, these have never broken despite some serious bendage in the rods and I treat them just the same as the flood rods. But the isotopes on the 2.5lb TC Dark Carbons just won't last. The last attempt we did (I am having a professional rod builder do these for me btw), as per your suggestion we whipped the end of the rod, under the isotope, and then whipped the isotope on top of the extra whipping. It's that one that cracked again last week 😭

So I'm at a loss as to how I can fix isotopes on the end of these rods in a way they won't crack 🤔
Click to expand...
Hi Rob/All,
Isotopes are quite fragile as most are glass and quite thin walled.
Around 15 to 20 years ago when I was playing with my 'Isoblob' design, I deliberately minimised the contact length of the isotope with the blank together with additionally stiffening the blank at that point. The use of longer tube tip rings or extensions helped.
To finish things off, I also encapsulated the isotope in an epoxy blob, leaving the top of the isotope partially exposed. The whole 'blob' was then protected by coating in a few coats of flexible rod epoxy. Even after all this, there was the occasional breakage.
I further avoided using 'long' isotopes to minimise any damage, whether by sharp impact or bending. Isotopes that is mostly used were 15 mm x 1.5 mm and 20 mm x 4 mm.
Sadly, the larger isotope was discontinued which was a real problem. I got around this by mounting isotopes side by side and also fabricating a protective polycarbonate sleeve in which allowed replacement of the isotope. There were a few other approaches which had promise but not fully tested.

The original 'Isoblob' was offered at cost price with any rod built and supplied by BFW.

There were a few more future designs in the pipeline, but I decided to retire from rod building as a full time occupation.

To be honest, I had some reservations about the clear shrink wrap method of fixing an isotope to a rod tip.

Maybe I'll get around to looking at this sometime in the future - I'm quite confident at resolving most of the issues.

I like to test most things in real fishing situations before releasing them - the original 'Isoblobs' sat on top of my Chimera 2s and Interceptors for at least 9 months before 'release'.

Coming back to 'your' problem, I'm sure this could be resolved in some way.
Maybe use chemical night lights or Isotope holder?

Cheers
Bob
 
I’ve been using 25x3 korda stow isotopes shrunk rapped to my 1.75 and 2.25 rods for ages now without any issue.
If the bend in the tip is causing a breakage I would personally suggest 2 things.
1 put the isotopes as far forward towards the tip rings as possible
2 use a shrink tube that is rigid when set so that it cant bend under the very little pressure you apply by pulling your line and putt pressure on the isotopes.
You can get all sorts of shrink tubes some are more solid than others. I don’t think you need to step down in size personally. Just eliminate the possibility of the isotopes being put under strain
 
broke the isotope on my rod bob hit it against a tree branch but was nice while it lasted 😁
 
Just tried a couple more colours that may be useful. Fluoro Left to Right Yellow, Orange, Green and Pink :cool:

IMG_1585 crop 800.jpg


Cheers
Bob
 
I like the idea with the thread. I have some and shall try it on my Daiwa Powermesh rod, several years ago I had a go at copying Bob’s Isoblob tips on a John Wilson Avon. The results weren’t as nice and neat as Bob’s but several years later its still effective and the isotope has not broken.
9F45BFB9-CDF0-4496-AFEB-E9FB62EF70CF.jpeg
 
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