Here I sit with a huge pile of familiar looking components (blank, guides, reel seats, cork, whatnot) and I've read a huge quantity of literature on how to build a fishing rod but I've never actually done it.

I intend to build a 6'6" MLF spinning rod (St Croix SCiii 3S66MLF) for drop-shotting first (actually after some practicing of techniques on a few $10 blanks) and I know I must start with the butt/reel seat and foregrip, but I have a bunch of questions that I don't seem to have seen the answers for. The questions all seem to stem from being short of one answer. The question is:

Bearing in mind that the guides are not attached, how does one know the butt length/weight so that the completed rod is balanced to ones hand placement based on ones fishing style?

One of the reasons I'm getting into building my own rods is that factory rods are usually pretty poorly balanced, at least for me.

-Steve

Steve,

You do not want to construct the rod with balance being your primary consideration. That might negate all the more important facets the rod must be expected to excel at - casting, retrieving and fish fighting.

Build the handle assembly so that it fits you. Do you need it long enough to make two-handed casts? Do you need to it long enough to allow you to brace the butt against your forearm under the fight of a large fish? Do you need a shorter handle to allow you pitch jigs under the pier? Build it to allow you to do what you need to do.

Then, after the rod is finished, see how it balances. If you need to add weight (and usually this will be at the butt end) you can add some inside the butt of the blank to suit you. There were some other options on balancing given recently. Do a search of the board archives and see what turns up.

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I should add that if you do it the other way around, you may end up building your 6'6" rod with a 20 inch handle, in which case you might have been better off building a 6' rod with a 10 inch handle to begin with.

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If you want to know approximately how it will feel with a given pre-made handle and guide set you can ream the cork grips to fit and slide the butt grip in place. Then build up two temporary tape arbors to slide the reel seat onto. Next slide the foregrip in place and tape the set of guides to the rod with masking tape. Put the reel you will use in the reelseat and you will end up with a pretty good idea of how it will balance. Decorative butt wraps and the finish on the guides and butt wrap will add some weight to the tip and the epoxy holding the reel seat in place will add some weight to the butt. You can get a close approximation at least.

If you are familiar with the equivilent factory rod that should give you some insight as well and you can make necessary changes to balance as you like.

For me experience has been the best tool. I know about how the rod will balance with different components before I start. There is only one way to gain that, get busy building rods. You will have some screw ups. I pushed the limit in just about every direction just to see how short a handle I could use or how light a rod I could build, etc, etc. Some worked out great and some were dogs.

I agree with Tom that there are many considerations that are critical to building a great rod. I do feel balance is one of those factors and I have a definite balance that I prefer and try to achieve so long as it doesn't throw other important factors out of kilter. I do not like to add weight to a rod. We could get a huge debate going over whether or not adding weight helps or hinders. I feel any added weight is a hinderance but that is just my opinion. I prefer to achieve the balance I like through component selection and layout.

Thank you gentlemen ... I nearly got a bad case of the 'analysis paralysis' when I should probably have just knuckled down and started building and gaining the experience that is pretty critical.

-Steve

Remember Steve, They laughed at Columbus too! What if you read all the material ever written on swimming, you still wouldn't know if you could swim until you jumped in the water. The balance of a rod is not static, it is constantly changing. The type of lures you use, the reel, the amount of line out and several other things can make a difference. Just make the rod as neat as you can. After many years of attending fishing shows, the custom rods that stick out in my mind was a set of three rods I saw. These rods didn't have any type of butt weaves or crosswraps. They were just well made. The finish was great. The guides were well porportioned and well tied. I believe Tom made a comment once about a customer wanting to buy some of his personal rods that were "plain in decor" but well constructed.

Steve if you're looking for more information you should check out
Tom's new book; it's great. The chapters on guide placement and
understanding the spine are worth the price of admission! Most of
the site sponsors carry it.

Gary,

I have Tom's book ... a great read to be sure. I think I'm just getting data overload (too much input) and making this too complicated. Once my jig is built I'll just get on it and ruin a few cheap blanks and build a few unfishable rods and then, probably, wonder what all the fuss was about ... :)

Thank you gentlemen, for your help. This board is a delight to read (as is the magazine) and the people here are outstanding fountains of knowledge and never too jaded to answer newbie questions.

-Steve