I am returning to rod building after a two year sabbatical. The return is from my visit to the Charlotte show, just reestablished my love of building.

A NASCAR fly rod for a friend is my next adventure. From what I saw at the show, you guys have been thinking out-side-of-the-box on your designs. I would like to get some input and pick you brains a bit for design help from tip to butt.

Any and all HELP will be appreciated. My brain works from the engineer side and not from the artist side. I am asking for help in the design concept.

Dennis Lee

Check out the cars they drive. Pick one you like then use the colors on the rod

The car is white with red numbers. I am wanting to go all out on this rod, not just colors of thread wrap.

How about incorporating a checkered flag, similar the the American flag pattern in the Clemens thread art book.

Jeff
Lets Go Mets!

Check out a Hobby shop that sells RC cars. The should have, or have access to, miniature stickers. The local shop here had a sheet of all the stickers you'd find on Tony Stewarts car and they were of the "waterslide" type. My guess is that they would be on the thin side and tear easily like the older waterslide paper but it would surely work. The local shop had about a dozen different cars. I've thought about doing a rod like this for a friend and using a lot of the contingency sponsor decals as well as the cars number decals. it would really load up the butt with busy decals but then again I've never seen a nascar fan wearing all kahki!!!

I built a couple of models. They all come with decals that are pretty good. you might want to go that route. Purchase the model to get the decals you want. The ones I bought were 12 dollars each.

Dennis,
You didn't say how much experience you had building rods. If you have done weaving before you could weave in all kinds of cool stuff, Car number or drivers name just to get the thought process going.

Dennis,

You did not say what wgt, lgt, etc you are going to build. If it is a rod big enough to have a fighting butt you could insert a small pen (like a hat or lapel pin) in the butt and epoxy over it. On another they have published a weave of Dale Ernhart signature (forgive my spelling). If you need info on the weave email me direct.

Hank
On The Rocks Fishing
Wells, ME.

I've done 2 rods in NASCAR themes , used the car colors and the little waterslides as Andrew has mentioned . I did an optical chevron in black and white over the main color (car) . I also did some Testors splatter on the black seat in the same car color (taped off the hoods) , gave it a kinda graphic look like you see on the paint schemes on some cars . Both guys were very pleased . Have fun , JD

Got Fish ?

A true NASCAR fan would be thrilled with 100 mile-an-hour, duck, tape. Sorry I couldn't resist. On a serious note a 4'' section of white/epoxy at the butt with air brushed black blocks that fade out toward the tip would give a awesome look, especially if you could get some pearlessecne in the mix.