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Planing - One Piece Rods

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Any of you chaps with direct experience of making (read hand planing) one piece rods of say 6' length any do's, don't and look out for kind of experiences to pass on to a would be Lee Wulff 'Ultimate' builder?  (Paul Blakley)

I have hand planned one 1 piece rod. I took it to a gathering. I think it casts nice but most of the builders didn't like it. The consensus was that ferrules are required in the mechanics of casting.

I made a 5' 10 inch on my 5 foot form. All my culms are 6 foot. I staggered nodes 1 inch losing 2 inches.  

Final planning was done on 5 foot on the small part of the taper on  all 6 sections before resetting the form and completing the butt 10 inches.  It is a light rod  maybe 1 weight. The rod with seat weighs 1.2 oz.  I use it on bluegills and other sunfish in the local lakes of Denver. I used an Lee Wulff Ultimate for the taper.  (Rich McGaughey)

AARGH! - How can adding weight to the center of a rod improve it's casting ability? So sorry, but that is a total crock. Any rod will be improved by removing the weight of the ferrule. Don't think so? Come cast one of  Bill Fink's or my one piecers and then tell me a ferrule improves a rod.  (Tom Smithwick)

The two comments regarding ferrules reminds me that it's hard to break from the pack.  I find my one piece rod to be completely different from all the opinions I was offered including explanations involving trigonometry. 

Along the same lines I bet someone could invent a better rod made from wood or combinations with bamboo but could never sell it.  (Rich McGaughey)

I'll buy that!  Y'all really ought to try one of Tom's rods.  They are something special.  Never had the pleasure with one of Bill's, but can vouch for Tom's.  (Harry Boyd)

I had the pleasure of casting one of Tom's one piece rods, I have to say it was one of the nicest if not the best bamboo rod I have cast.  (Tony Spezio)

I have no idea what the problem may have been with the one-piece rod you took to that gathering, but there is NO chance it could have been the absence of a ferrule.

I've built many 6' and 6 1/2' one-piece rods (3, 4 and 5 wt) over the past ten years or so, and everyone who has one swears there's nothing as magical as a one-piece rod.  The action of a rod depends entirely upon its taper, and a ferrule contributes NOTHING to a rod's optimum capacity to perform. Quite the contrary, ferrules add both weight and stiffness, interrupting and detracting from the action of a rod.  As it cannot possibly be otherwise, tapers must be adjusted (adding and subtracting cane) in an effort to compensate for that effect.  Put briefly, there is nothing positive about ferrules in rod construction except that they allow a rod to be more portable -- and if you've ever cast a well-designed one-piece rod, you'll realize that's only a marginally acceptable tradeoff.

There's been some talk  in this  thread about  Bill Fink's  work with one-piece rods.  Bill has built one-piece rods up to 7 1/2' and while these are unwieldy things to transport, they cast with such beauty and grace that the transportation difficulties have, for him, become totally irrelevant.  (Bill Harms)