I'm building on two heavy Calstar blanks for a friend. Both are stand-up rods with a bit lighter tips than the trolling series, a 50lb class and 80lb class. I tried to find the spine for about 30 minutes on this thing. Couldn't find a pronounced spine no matter how hard I tried. I know that rods without any noticable spine are highly desirable, my only concern is that this thing is just so heavy that I'm missing something. I marked what I thought was the spine and went from there, but never seemed to get the blank to jump to the same spot when pushed into a bend and turned. I could feel some jump, but not much.

I decided to go with what I had and pushed on with putting the guides on OSCAR style, or on top of the blank as it is bent (my theory is if that's the way the blank wants to bend naturally, I like to keep it that way). I have one more to do, the heavier of the two. Should I be doing anything different or am I missing something on these heavy blanks?

Thanks all.
Phil

Tried to email you but your email address is hidden.

Lou

Should be fixed now.

You may just want to build on the straightest axis. Sight down it until you find any natural bend and position the tip and butt up, belly down. Build it that way.

.........

I've built alot of Calstar , 30 , thru on up to 180, unlimited , do as Tom said , if a belly , it goes down in middle.

Dave von Doehren
PRRODS......If man built it , man can fix it.and if man built it man can break it !

Will do. Thanks guys.

Phil, if there is a predominant spine, you'll easily know. Even on these heavy blanks the spine isn't hard to find. I just did a 655H that had VERY little spine. I also have a Baja Boomer that has a well defined spine. I did a Seeker CTSF50XXH recently that had absolutly no spine at all. My point is that if your blank doesn't have much, if any, spine then just build on the curve as suggested.

Jay

I've made 4 of the 755XXH's, the 4 stiffest rods I've ever seen. All had a spine that was relatively easy to find by hand. Might be that yours just doesn't have much of one....

I know what you mean Mike. I've got a 7455XXH myself.

Jay