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Glad to hear that there is documentation for his Hollow-builts.

Here's the signature for the 8014 hollow:

And here are some intermediates on that rod, including 3 black "signature" intermediates that were placed between butt wrap and stripper. Those are the only black ones; all others were same as main wraps, I suppose antique gold.

Here's the 8012 signature - no indication that it is hollow.
(I felt slightly better about my relative rodmaking skills after seeing his glue line by the node, just where we all seem to get them...)

The only other inscription was "Robt E Rockwood"

Lee

I have a sort of an update on these rare Dickersons, after the 2009 Colorado rodmakers reunion, which ended last week. Jerry Stein spoke with us for a bit, and he brought maybe 20 Dickerson rods, most by Lyle, one or two by Bedford, and one or 2 by Schaaf. Seeing all those rods stacked together on a table was the highlight of the meet for me. The first good news is that I got to weigh a few of them. The bad news is that Jerry only brought the butt sections of each rod and we obviously could not cast any of them. The second good news is that he set up a phone call to Jim Schaaf to ask any questions we had about the rods.

Ok, so the Rockwood 8012 of which I have previously spoken, the butt weighed 3.1 oz or 90 grams. this is entirely in keeping with the inscribed weight of 3-3/4 oz, as most 8ft tip sections I have made and weighed come in around .6 or .7 oz, which would match up perfectly with Lyle Dickerson's inscription.

He had another Dickerson 8012 that was marked:
80-7-88
The Dickerson 8012
Hollow-built.
That butt section weighed 2.3 oz or 67 grams. It did not have the intermediates that the 8014 hollow-built did.

Since it was neither the "Pixley" 8012 nor the one up for sale elsewhere, must I conclude it is a 4th, undocumented, 8012?

Comparing those 2 butt sections, any rodmaker who has hollowed, and weighed his results, knows that that is a BIG difference! That second rod, with tip, must have come in around 3 oz total, for an 8ft 4wt. Personally, I don't know how he got that much weight out of the butt - I'd love to see X-rays of the inside of that rod.

One of the questions we asked Jim Schaaf was: Do you know how Lyle Dickerson hollowed rods? He said he asked Dickerson's sons and they didn't know, and he had the opportunity to look over all the documentation that Lyle gave to Tim Bedford, and there was nothing there on how to hollow. So exactly how he did it is still a mystery.

My conclusion, seeing how light the marked 8012 Hollow-built is, is that the Rockwood rod is probably not hollow, but until it gets X-rayed, who knows?

Other subjects:
The 8014 hollow-built we measured last year, it's butt section weighed 80 grams or 2.8 ounces. If, again, the tip weighs .7 or .8 oz (a fair guess), then the entire 8ft 6wt must weigh 3.5 or 3.6 oz. Light!

The 8615 "Harley Higbee" rod, its butt weighed 3.6 oz. Add maybe .8 oz for the tip, and you get a total rod weight of 4.4 or 4.5 oz - very good for a solid-built 8.5ft 6wt.

I wish we had had the opportunity to cast all of these, but it wasn't in the works. Regardless, I feel privileged to have been able to handle and measure these rods. Jerry mentioned that he felt that the Hollow-built Dickersons were the best of the bunch - most enjoyable to fish.
Having made some of his tapers both solid and hollow, I think I have to agree.

All the best,

lee