I have a customer who wants me to build him a fly rod to be used with a certain reel and a certain line. He wants that combo to balance 1" down from the front of the grip. He will send me the weight of the reel spooled with line and backing. I know what components I'm gonna use too. What I don't know is how much the grip will weight once it's turned to his spec, nor do I know how much thread, epoxy, arbors, and cement will effect my guesstimates.

Does anyone have a workable formula for, during the building process, balancing rod to reel in this way?

I've dealt with this problem before. I have gotten used to telling folks that the only way to get a balance is to try your finished fly rod with different reels/lines, but this isn't very satisfactory in terms of exactitude. IS there any way?

Josh Markvan
www.markvanheirloom.com

Josh,

It's your customer, but,

I'd tell him I wouldn't even attempt such a thing.

I'd tell I'd build him the lightest possible rod with the specified components.

If he's foolish enough to believe he can balance a fly rod, let him play with it.

But, if you really want to do this, build it 'tip heavy'. Put a couple of extra guides, Use double foots, long thread wraps, 'football' shaped balls of epoxy.

Leave the end of the butt open. After all is done, put the reel/line on it and add some lead weights in the opening so that it balances where he wants it to.

Awful way to build a rod, and I'd use a cheap blank (be a shame to ruin a good one in this manner), but you may get a satisfied customer...

I'd not do it, wouldn't want my name associated with such a thing...up to you.

Good Luck

Buddy

If you could get him to send you the reel to work with, I don't see an issue unless I'm missing something here.

Josh,
It is a pretty simple thing to do.

In spite of the other posts, many folks like a well balanced rig. Many fishermen find that a well balanced rig - one that literally floats on thier hand - is much, much more important than the absolute lightest weight rig.

If he will give you the weight of the reel and line - you can simply hang a reel on the blank in the expected location. Tape the expected guides on the rods in the expected location. The weight of the tip - is not that much different than the weight of the wraps and epoxy.

The weight of the back grip is the significant part of the balancing act. Take another grip that is about what you are going to put on the reel and tape in place. Now, the only thing that you haven't accounted for is the weight of the glue to hold the grip in place.

Add enough butt weight to balance the rod at the desired location. Try to keep the weight in the last 1/2 inch of the rod.

However, as one of the other posts suggested - with a long fly rod, and a short back grip - it could be a losing effort. If you really want to balance the fly rod, and it is a long way off - with the particular blank and guides, you may find it necessary to push the grip back a bit. What ever you do - don't go crazy on adding excessive weight. If you don't have a reasonable lever arm - i.e. mass over distance to effect a balance point - you may be better off to not even add any weight, but just try to keep the tip section as light as possible.

Short back gripped rods of any sort - especially fly rods are tougher to balance than a long back grip handled spinning or casting rod .

Take care
Roger

Roger;
I really like that fraise!
"One that literally floats on their hand"
I hope you don't mind, but I might steel it

If you can use an extended (fighting) grip beyone the reel, you've got the answer. But I didn't see anything in your description that said that, so maybe that's not an option

I would do the layup as suggested and then get him to actually mess with it to see how he likes it, and then make some decisions based on that. There is a point where the weight itself overshadows the balance and we don't know, from your post, what his tolerance for that might be. Also be aware, that the first time he changes type or brand of lines, this whole thing is going to be skewed a bit. For that matter, a wet line will add a bit more weight than a dry one.

The only ways I know to balance a rod are to (1) extend the butt (2) add actual weight at the butt (3) specifically leave something off the front, like a guide or two. All of these have been mentioned above, so I guess I'm not helping much.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

I know we've been into this before, but:

My premise is that it's impossible to 'balance' a fly rod in any meaningful way.

'Static' balance, that whole 'one inch below the end of the grip stuff' is useless as far as fishing the rod goes. Once you do ANYTHING but carry the rod, it's out of balance, it's out of balance continually, and won't function properly if it was IN 'balance'. Out of balance is what make the rod function. No one here has ever posted or written anything that leads me to any other conclusion.

A fly rod does several things:

It 'casts' a fly line with a fly attached-no possibility of 'balance' here-the amount of force exerted on the rod by the line will overpower any reasonable amount of weight and since it changes with the length of the line and the casters stroke power and speed, you'd have to continually change the 'weight' behind the fulcrum point to achieve 'balance'.

The fly rod is held while the line and fly drift if you are dead drifting a river/stream- the line must be through the guides and extending out the tip fo the rod during this use. You can balance the rod for this, but only to one rod angle and one amont of line-sometimes the length from the rod tip to the water changes due to things like water depth, whether or not the angler is in the water, and the height of the shoreline if he isn't. All these would require a different amount of weigth to 'balance' the rod. Then there are different rod angles-some will hold the rod at different angles during a drift, or based on the cutrrent, and it may change during each drift-again requiring different amounts of weight to 'balance' the rod...not possible to achieve 'balance' here....

The rod is held while the fly is retrieved- this is another area where it's impossible to achieve 'balance'-the drag on the line changes constantly...both due to line length, current or lack thereof, and fly type..can't do it or this either.

A fish takes your fly and you have to set the hook---depends on how you do it, but 'balance' is a non issue here-you are exerting pull on the rod, inherently and intentionally unbalanced...

You hook the fish and are 'fighting' it. Impossible to 'balance', even with a little fish. Besides, this is why we use a flyrod, the fish feel 'bigger'. Why? Because the rod is 'unbalanced' in the fish's favor. He has the long end of the 'lever'....

Did I miss any fishing related 'use' of a fly rod? Besides just carrying it, I mean.

I know you can 'balance' a spinning or casting rod, and there are pros and cons to doing so. I just don't see how a fly rod can EVER be 'balanced' while you are fishing with it. Since that is true (again, no one has so far shown that it's not), doing anything to 'balance' a fly rod in any static situation is useless, and if it means adding weight, it's harmful.

I'd love for someone to show me where I'm wrong here....but I believe that lightest is best in this case.

Buddy

its possible - but probably not practical. if you want to do it, I'd get the reel, but remember if all the line is on the spool the balance will be a litlte different than if the line is through the guides.

I've got a 7'10" 4 wt that is balanced much like you mentioned, but it juts happend to work that way. with said rod I'm generally throwing small dries and nymphs, the rod is most often held above a 45 for purposes of mending and getting a good drift so the balance of the rod is not really advantageous.
this would have never worked happened if I'd have used a cork handle without adding addtional weight, but I used bark and the extra weight was the answer. I wouldn't add additional weight to a rod, especially a fly rod, for the purpose of balnce.

One of the early RodMaker mags had an article on balance that had something I think would help here. In essence the reelseat was built with two threaded ends so the person could move the reel from an uplocking to downlocking position and everything in between to get the balance they wanted.

The guy sent me the weight of reel, line, backing (he's in Australia). I'll duplicate this weight with lead when I go to do my balance tests. I'm gonna try to do it as outlined by you guys. Yes we want the rod reel combo to float without teetering right at his balance point. Thanks for the posts.

Josh Markvan
www.markvanheirloom.com