I know what mine is, aligning the guides. No matter how many times I check and re-check, They never seem absolutely straight.

Adding trims bands. Too tedious. I particularly dislike doing trim bands on thin rods.


Lou

Deciding what type of thread work and color to do on a rod. In a couple of days I can have the handle made and then spend two weeks trying to decide on the decor. On your guide placement, I have a couple of ideas that might help you. I was watching a fellow refurbish a rod at a local repair shop. He would put the reel on the seat and pull out some line. He would then run the guides on the line and put the line through the tip. He would attach a small weight to the line to keep it tight. Then he would tape the guides which were centered on the rod by the line. I use a simpler method. I have a black line running down the center of the base board on my rod lathe. The rod is centered on V blocks over that line. I put a small amount of Flex Coat white hot glue on the guide foot. I heat the guide foot a little bit to soften the glue and press the guide on the blank which by looking directly downward over the blank I will have a centered guide. If the black line on the baseboard shows on either side of the blank while I am installing the guide I will know that I am not on center.

Saying that it is finished.

Having the preacher ask me why do I always have tape on my coat sleeves and something sticky on my shoes that marks up the aisle when I pass the plate!

Gon Fishn

Cutting away all the thread and tape in the vacume cleaner "rug brush" thing, so it'll spin again! !!! lol.

Static guide placement , and adjusting sizes .......... just not fun sometimes .

Got Fish ?

Cleaning up after aplying the finish, oh what a pain. I always seem to spill something on the workbench and myself.

Finishing a rod and not having another to do right away.

Wrapping beyond the first guide wrap. Tedious and boring as most my wraps have inlays. No creativity involved. Plus the smaller the rod dia. gets, the harder it is for me.

Preparing guide feet. I'd love to farm that puppy out...

Putter
Williston, ND

I am with you Putter.....Just look at the pics I posted and you will see that guide foot prep is not my area of expertise. I am much better at fishing them than building them right now.

But I am learning.

I have to agree that guide placement , spacing, and alignment can be a serious pain though.

Derek

Trying to find time to build. :)

Mo

Telling the wife "Really.............just one more coat of epoxy and I'm finished!"

Waiting for finish to cure to see just what variety of Grimlins or which of Murphy's Laws I've run afoul of. I enjoy the rest of it all, well, ..., except, ah... backorders. There, I said it. that ugly word. LOL. Ralph

If at first you don't succeed, go fishing, then try, try again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2005 12:42AM by Ralph Jones.

....giving it to the customer!


I always like the rod I'm building more than the last one and hate to give'em up.

I just built a rod for our fishing club to raffle off and I like that rod the most out off all that I've built. I even bought a raffle ticket....they kinda frowned on me when I did...LOL Oh well!

Building rods in the summer.....takes away time that could be spent on the water fishing!

Easily, epoxy finishing. After all the good, creative work is finished, you have to put a bunch of glossy junk on, and like the forward pass, three things can happen and two are bad. Actually, I've found alot more than two can go bad, but the saying fit. Have Fun!!

Wayne

Dave D'Ambrosio...how many times I have said that to my wife and children. Only to inspect it and figure I need another coat here or there!

I would say that I am with the majority, I hate coating the guides!

I agree that the trimbands and inlay work is a more difficult as the guides get smaller. And I would dislike that process too if I could just get past how much I had putting epoxy on the guides! LOL!

Second thing I hate the most is how anal retentive I am about my work. I never seem to be completely satisfied. Now, the few customers I have had thus far are full of satisfaction and can sing nothing but praise, but I feel like....Ahh, it's ok, I guess (inside)! In fact, my wife who watches me build the rods and inspects the final product for me can't believe the "mad skills" I have, but I just feel like there is so much more to learn and so much more to become better at before I'll feel that level of satisfaction.

Domenic Federico

By FAR its the epoxy step. Everything else is fine, I just hate relying on something that can so easily go bad.

DR