Just getting into rod building. Am stripping an old rod to the blank for my 1st project.

Don’t know much about blanks though. Is there somewhere I can go to physically look at blanks or am I stuck just rolling the dice with ordering blanks?

I live in the NY Metro area in Westchester County NY. Would be willing to drive an hour or so.

Francis,

Welcome to the rod building forum!

One of the challenges of this craft is that there are few places where a person can go and take a blank or components in hand. Most blanks are ordered by catalogue, or, in some cases, calling one of the sponsors and asking them what they might suggest.

Nevertheless, I believe there is an excellent way to get closer to what you are looking for: If you can be specific about the type of fishing you want to do, there are many here who can make recommendations to you. It doesn't totally eliminate rolling the dice; however, it can mitigate the risk more than pure guesswork. Post a New Topic and I bet you will have several bites.

I hope you hang around and do lots of reading and searching on this forum (see "Search" button above).

Let's start now! What kind of fishing do you do? What kind of old rod are you restoring?

Hey Francis,

I’m in CNY (herkimer county) and as far as I know, it’s just a roll of the dice and taking advice from forums to get peoples perspectives on blanks to help decide. I rarely go downstate so I’m unaware of any places locally to you. Delaware Valley Tackle (misleading name, it’s in Fort Plain, Montgomery County) is a custom rod shop that uses strictly Mudhole blanks. Might be worth while to reach out to him and see if he can help you out. It’s about 3 hrs from Westchester county. Fly Shack in Gloversville (Fulton county) sells fly rod blanks and might let you peruse them a bit. RodGeeks used to have a storefront in Albany but since the St Croix take over I believe it was closed. Either way, if you have access to St Croix rods then you can get a feel for the RodGeeks blanks since they’re the same (St Croix just sells their blanks under the RodGeeks name). Being such a big metro area, there might be some sport shows in the tri-state area that might have some rod building suppliers who attend.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2022 08:06PM by Evan Cobb.

This won't work for everybody since it'd be a drive that is going to take a lot longer than an hour for most, but at the International Custom Rod Building Exposition in February, there will be along the lines of 10,000+ rod blanks representing hundreds of models from no less than a dozen different major blank manufacturers. You can shake, waggle and wiggle them to your heart's content. www.rodexpo.com

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

Leslie, Tom and Evan,

Thank you for the welcome and advice. To respond to all of you at once…. I will most likely be around for a while. I am not afraid to make a longer drive if I don’t have anything going on. I have been a fishing junky for the past 10-15 years and am excited to tinker with customizing rods for myself and my fishing buddies.

Evan - herkimer… any chance you know Keith fulmer form back in the day??

As far as type of blanks i will be looking for…. I fish the Long Island sound via boat. I mostly fish either stripers blues or light tackle skinny water fluke, sea bass and blackfish, mostly jigging with anything from 3/8 oz to 3oz depending on the depth and tide. A lot of jigging. A lot of casting, but as far as casting not much more than .5-2 oz. A lot of jigging tho. Like light tackle to make it fun.

This might be blasphemy in the rod building community, but my favorite jig rod is the 6’4” MH tsunami slim wave spin rod as far as action and power for jigging in my area. Love the sensitivity in the tip and the backbone for heavier reef fish in my area. I also don’t mind how light it is.

To be clear. I know nothing on blanks besides what i have gotten from youtube in the last week. Just got a steal on a engine powered rod building set up (impulse buy but im all in). Will without a doubt be using it for mostly inshore stuff in the time being. Will be looking on any and all recs for blanks so please send and keep em comin!!

Very happy to be part of what seems a very helpful community and look forward to sharing experiences and whatever knowledge i can share!!!

I believe ODM is fairly close to you, rods and blanks are sold.

Francis,

If you are a fishing and rod-building junkie, and can carve out a couple-three days in your schedule, I think you would really enjoy the EXPO! Not only are there thousands of blanks and components to handle, there are many seminars by experts in rod craft. Bring a notebook. (One of my favorite and most useful seminars back then was one by Ralph O'Quinn, creator, of Trondak U 40. He gave up the juice on epoxies, surface prep, and how to bond surfaces together based on his experiences in the aerospace field. I've used Rod Bond ever since.)

One of the best parts, though, is the opportunity to build connections and relationships with the rod-building community. I remember meeting one of my forum gurus at an EXPO back in the day. It was like meeting my favorite author. Met all kinds of folks there and enjoyed them all.

i thought there were a couple tackle shops along the jersey shore that carried blanks. names escape me at the moment but one i beleive was in or close to Seaside Nj and carried rodgeeks. IDK how much inventory they keep on hand and never made it over there when i was in the area.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2022 12:00PM by Matt Ruggie.

i think it was betty and nicks seaside park nj

Frank, Do a search for NERBS and all your questions will be answered

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)

Dennis Danku Wrote:
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> Frank, Do a search for NERBS and all your
> questions will be answered
i was just gonna mention that. i believe it was Billy V from nerbs who gave me some recommendations for NJ shops and a few blanks to check out.

Matt, Your thinking of Grumpy's Bait & Tackle. It's a surfcasters dream shop with all the blanks you want to wiggle.

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)

Dennis Danku Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Matt, Your thinking of Grumpy's Bait & Tackle.
> It's a surfcasters dream shop with all the blanks
> you want to wiggle.
thanks. yeah it was some years ago at this point. good to know!

just checked my email and it was in fact grumpys in seaside. thx dennis

Francis,
check out the xcomps from rodgeeks.

Matt Ruggie Wrote:
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> just checked my email and it was in fact grumpys
> in seaside. thx dennis
>
> Francis,
> check out the xcomps from rodgeeks.

Ya that sounds like it could be what I am looking for.
If I wanted to cut the butt down a bit to around 7’ or 6’6” would that effect the action at all?

Cutting from the butt or tip end will change things. Shortening the tip will reduce the Action Angle (AA) and make the blank slower in action. Trimming the butt section will lower the power (IP or ERN). Conversely, lengthening or extending a blank will increase the action and power.

There are those who love a certain blank they have trimmed. They say if you want to do this, go in very small steps. The old haircut analogy applies.

(I've seen some videos of jig fishing in Long Island sound and it looks like a blast! The fellow was drifting bucktails with trailers. Sweet!)