Hi everyone,
I'm not great at this computer stuff, but I wanted to stick my head in here and say hello, I'm back, and I'm excited to be making blanks for my new company, north fork composites.
I know Tom's site here is the place for rod builders to trade ideas and talk shop. I've been less involved in the industry for awhile, and I hope you all can catch me up quickly.
Gary

Welcome aboard Gary ! I am sure you will renew a bunch of old friendships and make a lot of new ones.
Congrats on the new North Fork Composites line of blanks. No doubt they will be a big hit among us rod builders.
Will see you at the ICRBE.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

IMO this is the most informational rod building forum around. With the addition of your knowledge and experience it just got even better. Welcome aboard!

Your experience with rod blank design and manufacturing will be a boon for all of us.

Good day Mr.loomis great to have you back in the rod blank world always loved the steelhead line wich brings up the ?? about when are they expected out thanks............Rob

Welcome to this forum.

There are many builders on this site that will find your active participation quite rewarding. Your marketing skills for rods will prove just as valuable to us as the introduction of the new NFC blanks. The concepts presently used by custom related to improving the performance of many fishing rods is certainly not stagnant. Recent innovations such as the micro guide movement has the potential for major impact on rods of the future.

If you have not had the opprotunity to evaluate some of the new concepts being utilized by custom builder please take the time to review and comment.

Linked below are two of seven Volumes of posts related to a build style introduced in Rodmaker Magazine that will give you some idea of the present level of interest.

Several of your old friends and staffers are presently evaluating these rods and preliminary results are very favorable.

[rodbuilding.org]

[rodbuilding.org]

We sure would like to hear your general comment of how custom builders can best market these rods.

Again welcome aboard!

A pleasure having you on board Gary. Are there any plans for fly rod blanks with North Fork? I loved the GL3's, built many a rod on those blanks.

cheers
Harold

Gary, welcome aboard, both this forum and the custom builders blank business!

I have been keeping track of your progress with NCF through our mutual friend Ed Rabinowe and look forward to saying Hi at the ICRBE.

I too am anxious for the fly rod blanks.

@Harold and Phil—Gary is running up and down the stairs here, talking patterns with Brad on the production floor, so I thought I'd stick my head into this thread quickly and get you both a reply. I'm spearheading the fly-blank effort at NFC (with Gary and Brad, of course), so I can tell you that, yes, there will indeed be fly blanks, and as soon as the first blanks are "production final," I'll get a post up on the blog (and probably toss a note in here, too).

Thanks very much for your interest in what's going with the fly-side at NFC. And Gary says "Thanks!" too (he just walked past and gave a shout).

Back to Gary...

Gary will be on the Expo seminar team at the 2010 event. He'll be presenting on rod blank properties.

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

Great News! Looking forward to meetig you as well as building on your blanks!!

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Welcome!! and nice to meet you Gary.

DR

Gary, Welcome! And congrats with your new venture. We are all eager to see the new blanks and to build on them. We are also very glad to see you join the forum. This is indeed the best rod building forum out there. Tom does a great job for sure!
We are also very interested in seeing what you, Jason, Brad, and the rest are up to. We know you folks will continue to develope new goodies for us all in the future. Proud to have you folks aboard!
Kyle Robinson

Gary, Glad to see you back in the blank business. I just ordered one of your fly rod blanks, a TF 803 IM and cannot wait to get it built and on the water. Any plans to expand the options in your fly rod blanks. In my area there is a decent following of the 8'-6" length in 4 and 5wts and the shorter 7'-6" in 3 and 4wts.

All rise......

Hi Gary! We are all glad to see you back to work. Just finishing up the last of my SA1084's for customers. I know the next generation will be even better.

Thank you all for the kind words. I'd say more but I type really slow and Jon has me chained to the desk working on patterns.

Gary