This is my first fly rod build, after several other rod builds which I am very pleased with.

This is on a Sage One blank, 9' 4 pc, 5wt, that I picked up for a really good price ($250 shipped) The blank is straight, seems very good. The spine is marked with alignment dots, and it feels accurate. When the rod is flexed, the dots are on top. Am I correct, that this is the top of the rod?

The factory Sage One 5wt, 4 pc rod is built with 9 guides, a double foot Fuji stripper, and 8 snake guides. The first 4 are of a thin gauge wire, the rest of the snakes being heavier gauge, and increasing in size. I do not want to try to re-invent the wheel, I just want a nice rod, and this guide scheme seems good. I have fished Sage rods in the past, which is why I eventually found this one.

I am weighing between the REC guides, and the Snake Brand guides, leaning toward the Snake Brand due to less effort required in dressing the feet, and also the concave foot seems to make sense. Probably more of a matter of taste, and individual opinion, but any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

As a newbie builder, the choices in guides is bewildering. For my first 3 rod builds, for one rod it took ordering guides 3 times before I got the guides that seemed right. I would rather not repeat this experience again, at least not on this rod, as I want to fish it very soon!

What is a good guide selection, and layout for this rod? Tip size, and the other guide sizes...

FlexCoat has a guide spacing chart online for flyrods. Is that a good choice for spacing the guides, prior to a static test, anyway? Any suggestions for a guide layout?

As for reel seat, I am leaning toward a Bellenger reel seat, but really what I want is quality metal work, with awesome wood, preferably in highly figured Koa. I am a professional woodworker by trade, and work exclusively in exotics, so I have a good idea what I want to see for a reel seat. If anyone has, or could point me in a direction for the most screaming beautiful piece of figured Koa in a reel seat, I would be grateful. Alternately, if anyone here happens to turn reel seat inserts, I have the wood, (and lots more), I have a piece of Koa that I would like turned into a reel seat, if it could be done in a timely manner.

For the grip, I am considering what to do. I built a power wrapper using the Alps head, and it works well. Turning EVA is pretty easy, at least just basic turning, shaping. With the Bellenger reel seats, (down locking, threaded) does that just butt up against the beginning of the cork? Or is it inset into the grip into a recess? I am really busy, and want to fish this rod soon as I do not currently have a 5wt. Anyone want to make a nice grip for sale? :)

Any other suggestions for a reel seat?


This forum is great! Thank you all.

Comments deleted



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2016 04:30PM by John E Powell.

unhide your e-mail

Done...

Is this Dick Ross in Sandpoint?

Chris

Yes, most fly rods are built "up" - spine on top just like a spinning rod or bait caster. Whether the spine ought to be up or down or offset by 90 degrees is a sure way to start a fight.

Nine guides, excluding the tip top is OK. Their sizes and locations is another matter. Some hold that smaller, light wire snakes perform better while others claim larger guides are the way to go. For a 5 weight I'd go with Snake Brand's Universal light wire snakes. Nothing wrong with REC guides, but I've built a bunch with Snake Brand Universal snakes without a single problem. As to the guide locations, most any suggested layout is a starting point only. Final location is determined by static testing, so be prepared to spend a few sometimes frustrating minutes getting the guide locations dead on, center of the 10 ring, correct. Some here will no doubt take exception, but doing the static load test, repeatedly as needed, is more important than guide size.

Tip top size is determined by the blank size. If you will go to the Snake Brand web site you will see the sizes and their corresponding tube IDs in decimal equivalents of inches. For a 5 weight you will want the standard loop size. While you are at the Snake Brand site there is a guide layout chart developed by Tom Morgan, who is in the camp favoring smaller, light wire snake guides. Again, static load tests are THE way to determine final locations of the snake guides.

Fly rod reel seats are all over the place in terms of materials and inserts. You might check out the Snake Brand seats too. Unfortunately, and as you probably know, there can be a significant variation from one insert to another. So expect some variation from the fancy online picture and what you get. A Bellenger seat with Koa wood sounds great.

Finally, a down locking fly reel seat's hood is down towards the butt and there is no inlet of the grip necessary. Just make certain the seat hardware includes a cork trim ring for the transition from cork to seat. Bellenger and Snake Brand seats will include the trim ring for down locking seats.

Thank you Donald.

So I have read some about 'spine' and am still somewhat confused as to understanding 'spine up', or 'down'. With the rod held in both hands, rolling the tip on a smooth wood floor, feeling for the spine, the dots on this rod are on top. Is that spine up? Or Spine down? In the book ' Advanced Custom Rod Building', it is suggested that building a rod so that the orientation of the blank in the finished rod is the same as I am describing, dots up (Spine up?) can potentially yield a rod that casts more accurately due to the increased control in the direction of how the rod is loading, and how it will unload, at least through half of it's stroke. Those words make some sense to me.

What is meant by 'getting the center of the 10 ring correct? What is the 10 ring?

In static testing, I am looking at the shape of the curve, and adjusting guides to make a better shape, correct? What defines 'the best' shape? Is it an evenly distributed curve? With the 3 rods I have built so far, 2 of them seemed okay with the layout I chose using some calculator I found on the internet, the other rod had what looked like a better curve ( to me) by adjusting the spacing of 3 of the guides towards the tip. As it was my first time experiencing this, I still felt like I was second guessing myself. That rod recently went to the Keys, and lifted some decent size Amberjack from the reef. It is a 60lb Super Seeker, spiral wrapped, and I am really happy with it. It also tosses 8oz lead a mile, using a Penn US113W, 60 lb mono mainline. Casting it is a pleasure.

Yes, I am aware of the difference in how the photos shown of wood objects can differ from what arrives in the mail box. I am willing to pay for photos up front, of the piece I am buying. Fingers crossed that this can become a reality, I think it will. :)

Spine doesn't control the cast, nor cause rod twist. Any twist is caused by guide location and the lever arm effect of those guides.

The rod will cast where you cast it - spine plays no role in casting accuracy. We should be far enough down the road by now with data, facts and science, that the old spine myth would die off.

...........

FWIW it seems that most factories disregard spine and build on the straightest axis. I know St. Croix and Sage do them this way.

Chris

I've build fly rods up and down and truly can feel no difference casting or bring fish to hand.

Sorry about the 10 ring thing. It's an old target shooting expression referring to the absolute center of a target - the center of the target's center ring, the 10 ring - or perfection.

For guide locations think in terms of giving the rod what it wants / needs and not in terms of guide locations determining the blank's curve. Ideally (the center of the 10 ring), is when the space between the line at the mid-point between the guides is constant thereby distributing load according to the rod's taper. And, as tapers (they determine shape of blanks' curves under load) vary, it is not reasonable to find a one size fits all guide layout optimal for all blanks. If you have or can obtain the blank manufacturer's suggested guide locations then start with those locations. Just don't blindly assume they will work. Some (TFO comes to mind) publish locations for their rods that are usually very close to dead on correct. But, I just finished a rod from another source for which the manufacturer's suggested locations needed serious tweaks so that the distance between line and blank at the midpoints between guides was consistent after allowing for the changes in guide heights. Said another way, the line should follow the bend of the rod under a load. What you what to avoid is a situation where the distance between the rod and line at the mid point between guides varies significantly between guides. The more probable problem area will be 20% to 40% down the rod from the top where the more flexible tip taper begins transitioning to the less flexible mid and butt sections.

Here is a link to an online tutorial that does a better job explaining the concept of line following a blank's taper than I do. [anglersresource.net]

Chris,
Like Tom said, Sage does not spine the blank pieces, they just look down the blank pieces, mark the blank and than check to make sure it is marked correctly for the straightest axis.

Ahh.. that pesky chasing the '10 ring' thing... I know about that curse.


Thanks for the link to that article. I had read it months ago, but today I understood it way more. That is good stuff.


Interesting about Sage not marking the blanks on the spine. On this blank, the dots come to 12:00, dead nuts, every time when rolling it under flex. When I sight down the unflexed blank, I see that this is the straightest line, also. On the 'side' views, the blank is very slightly less straight, I think, hard to tell, it is so close.

Yes Chris this is the same Dick Ross in Sandpoint