Leonard “Firsts”
He was the first man to make, in 1871 or 1872, a six-strip rod instead of the four-strip construction previously used. Anyone who can calculate things like longitudinal shear and bent-beam stresses can prove by immutable mathematical principles that the six-strip rod of hexagonal cross section is inherently the best. I can’t. But it is.
Leonard was also the first to use compound tapers of calculated design. And what that amounts to is this: Tapers are vital in implements that deliver a stroke-golf clubs, racing oars, polo mallets, horsewhips, and the like-because such implements increase their effectiveness by bending at the start of the stoke and straightening at the finish. Shaping the shaft with varying tapers at different points permits the force of the stroke to be controlled, timed, and directed.
Leonard’s second contribution was a perfection of workmanship never previously approached. He was a superb craftsman, with genius in his hands, and could make the good rods that he did, at the start, with simple hand tools. But he never could have kept up with his orders by such methods, even though he had hired and trained help. So he designed some tools of his own.
Taken from "The Father of the Fly Rod" by Sparse Grey Hackle (published in Sports Illustrated, June 4, 1956)
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