I am presently building a four piece six weight fly rod using a PacBay Traditions blank. When I splined the pieces of the blank, there was a slight curve in the blank in theupper two sections. I went ahead and wrapped the rod neglecting the curve. After viewing the guides and tip top I am not pleased with the look of the rod with the slight curve in the top two sections of the rod blank. My question is this: Do I wrap the rod according to the spline, or do I straighten the rod blank fitted together and wrap the guides according to the curve, neglecting the true spline, or do I return the rodblank to the dealer and ask for a straight blank?. Irregardless of how I put the top two sections together, i get a slight curve in the rodblank, but I can reduce the curvature by disregarding the spline. I would appreciate any advice/comments.-gb-

You'll be hard pressed to find a perfectly straight blank. The vast majority of them all have a natural curve. That's the curve most factories wrap on. They ignore the spine. If you choose to wrap on or opposite the spine, you'll have that curve usually going off to one side or the other. It's not going to hurt anything, nor is ignoring the spine and wrapping on the straightest axis.

If you wrap on the straightest axis, I would suggest positioning the blank so that the tip and butt are up, the belly down. The guides would go on the belly, of course.

........................

Maybe it'll cast around corners?? :)

Putter
Williston, ND

Gene,

Don't know if this will help but my distributor told me some of their customers would hang the rod vertically and apply heat to the blank in the curved area to straighten it out. This was usually done to the St. Croix seconds they use to sell and these blanks almost always had a curved tip section.

I haven't tried this technique yet and don't really know how much heat to apply but I have tried baking enamel spray paint at 250 degrees and didn't hurt the blank, at least it hasn't broken yet. If your brave enough or foolish enough(is there a difference) you might try hanging it with a small weight at the bottom and hit it wiith a hair dryer.

When I get around to it I'm going to try this and well post my results. Don't hold your breath for this.

good luck,

larry

I would think that 250 degrees is getting pretty close to taking the blank to a temp where the bonding in the blank will come apart on you. Be real careful there; boiling water temperatures are safe; I've done that too many times to count. But 250 is REALLY close, Larry.

Putter
Williston, ND

I am at my wits end about this rod. I took off the wrappings and rewrapped on what I thought was the curve, which was very slight. When I got the wraps back on the durn thing has the dog leg in it again. Unless, I can figure out something, I am gonna have to keep the rod as no one will buy it I don't think. I am using expensive titanium snakes and a titanium reel seat so i will have a lot of expense in this rod. Is it possibe for the wraps to cause a bend? I did check my tension and I'm not putting too much tension on the wraps, as I can move the snake eyes to align them. Anyone have some magical formula/ answer for a poor rodbuilder???Would you use the heat technique after the wraps have been epoxied? Thanks for your help...-gb-