So after the first disaster, where the rod building part went fantastic until an outside force destroyed the rod, I waited until I found what I think was a deal to try again.

I bought a 5-piece @#$%& unsanded blank lot for about 17$ per blank. They are 82 7/8" long, 0.565" at the butt, and a 5.5 tip. Graphite, unsanded, and a "Medium Heavy" tag. Doing the "bend the tip 90* and look at the rod flex" test, it looks to me like a moderate-fast action. Not that I am any kind of expert on any of this, but they're good enough for me to work on.

I did sand one with 600 grit paper and a block. I've sanded a lot of carbon fiber car parts, so I know to go light and don't cut all the resin off, and it looks and feels a LOT better. I did find what I think might have been the "cosmetic blemish" though-there were some bulges about a foot in front of the handle area where the rod is slightly thicker-less than 0.020" difference-and these possibly got sanded a little much. I sanded to leave a thin "valley" line, but not to remove all the resin, except where those bulges were. I did not get any significant carbon dust, but I just think I'd like to not take that extra risk just yet.

The other blanks that have not been sanded have a LOT of tooth to them, so if I sand them it will probably be with a few swipes of a 1200 grit foam block to take off the sharp spiral, but not as deep as the first one I did.

I want to build a pair of pier fishing/inshore spinning rods, to take with me to the gulf of Mexico this October. They will carry 4000 size to 8000 size spinning reels, and by my best guess the blanks are OK for 10-20lb braided line. I don't plan on slinging more than a 3oz size lure, until I can get a feel for how the rod handles that size.

I have a set of Fuji KLFG guides and an LG tiptop with the Fazlite rings to go on these two rods, and I have some size 18 reel seats. These guides will work out for the NGC guide instructions in the library here, correct?

What kind of tests or information do I need to do or measure to help figure lure weight and line weight, and make sure I get the best out of these generically described blanks? ESPECIALLY if I wind up really liking them!

You can find a conversion formula for upper and lower lure weight casting ranges in part 1 of the Common Cents Info in the upper portion of the left hand column. It will require you to do CCS tests using and counting pennies. Other than that, it's pretty simple to do. I have tried using it with a few of my rods, and the numbers I came up with weren't to far off from what the blank manufacturers recommended casting weights for the blanks were.

Doing CCS is also going to tell you the actual power of the blank, as well as its' action.

Well that's excellent! I'll try to do that this evening. If it works out well and correlates strongly with how they were advertised, I'll probably buy a few more of these while they're inexpensive, cosmetic flaws in the blank don't really bother me if they are as hard to notice as what I've seen in the ones I've already got.

(Yes, I think I kinda like building rods.)