Hello,

I am new to rod building. I have gathered up my needed supplies and I have been practicing wraps, finishing wraps, and shaping guide feet.
I have 4 projects in line for my first few rods.

1. Put new guides on and completely refinish the blank finish on a 10'6" St.croix steelhead noodle rod (10yrs old)

question- The guide part I know what to do on. How do I refinish the whole blank. The old finish is shot. Do I treat it like a guide wrap?
I have a rod turning device. Can I use flex coat lite finish?........Use a brush for long peice like that?....

2. I will be building a 10'6" 6 WT fly rod for my brother. It will have a special grip called a "MANUFORM" grip. The grip is not pre-inletted to hide a reel seat hood. The grip is very thick towards the back. I will be using a uplocking reel seat.

-Should I inlet the grip and hide the hood. will this make it harder or more uncomfortable to palm the fly reel?
Will this effect casting dynamics? Should I even be worried about this?

3. I will also be building up a 13' steelhead float rod with St.croix blank and a 4'6" ultralight with St.Croix blank. I am using Fuji or cabela's high frame guides on the 13'. Is it possible to use high frames on a ultralight rod like that.? Will this make the rod cast better?.........

4. DUST PROBLEMS......in my practice wraps and finishing I have been having dust problems. The ONLY place I can do all my work is my bedroom in the basement. People are always home and moving around. My door doesnt have a lock so people barge in and dust goes everywhere when they open the door.

- should I buy a dust/particle filter of some type? if so what kind? Where? Price?

- Will vacuming my room one day and then finishing the wraps the next evening help?

5. Is it possible to grind a guide foot too much? I am having trouble with my wrapping thread when I first hit the end of the foot. It slides underneath the foot so then I grind some more to try and decrease the angle.Will I have worse problems when I use flex coat guide adhesive?
This happens on size 16 thru 25 guides that I practice on.

also knife edges on the sides?

okay I will stop now...................

aside from the dust problems rod building looks like it will be a blast!

Thank you to all that may reply and I wish everybody luck on thier projects!

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Jason VanDeusen

If you have carpet in your rod room that may contribute to the dust problem. I use a spare bedroom and have removed the carpet and put tile instead. I clean the room just before finishing a rod. One other suggestion I have is to build a box out of plywood big enough to hold your drying motor and rods while turning and drying; that is, assuming you are building two piece rods. By the way, check out a site called Leapinbass.com. I saw the name posted earlier and checked it out. It looks like a great site for someone just starting rod building.

If you do a search here on this site you can uncover tons of info on blank refinishing [don't use flex coat for blank finishing. It is for thread wraps only.] Same with your other questions. Most of them have been answered in depth here at some time or another and the archives here are a very valuable resource.

If you can finish your rods in the early morning then most of the dust has settled and won't stir and fall until people get up and around. You could also put some type of shelf or box around the rod while the finish is curing to keep off some of the dust.

I don't think you are grinding your feet too much. I think they aren't sitting flat and that is why the thread slips under the tip edge. Try using a pair of needle nose pliers to get the tip edge turned down just a hair. Try to keep the feet flat though as you don't want any sharp edges or protruding points resting on the blank. There was a great article in one of the issues of Rodmaker [link to the left] that had all the info you need on preparing guide feet for wrapping.

With luck some of this will help you. Each rod will be better than the one before it. Good luck!

Hi Jason,
When I want to coat the blank of a fishing rod I use Min Wax PolyUrathane- Clear Gloss, I mix it with Mineral Spirit 50/50 mix then I have a dip tank made of PVC Pipe w/ one end with removeable cap I pour the mixture in the tube and dip the blank and then shake it off and hang it on a wall and let it drip into a short rain gutter I have on the floor. I only have to dip the blank once. Make sure when you dip the blank that you dip it tip first and hang it from the butt of the rod. I have also found that you can also dip it with the guides on too. Also for preperation you will need to lightly rub with a light steelwool if there is any of the clear finish that is peeling on the rod. I hope this might be of help to you.
Neal Cissel

Jason,
Lots of good information you will find on this site, just do a search about the rod finishing. I think you'll find the right answers.

Just a comment about dust. It may not be as big of a problem as imagined. You can make a box to contain your rods while turning.
I haven't tried this, but some say if dust is heavy in the air to use a water mist spray prior to finishing (not on the rod or the finish, though). This settles the dust at the time you need to do the job.

Have at 'er with the rodbuilding, and you'll probably be addicted like the rest of us hanging out on this site.

Rich
Richard's Rod & Reel

Thank you all for the replys! and tips!

I will perform a search of this site and look into my topics of interest.
I am so glad I found out about this site!

Happy rod building!
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Jason VanDeuen

as far as dust goes, look at your heating system. is it forced hot air ? or hydronic (water .. most often baseboard) ? either one will stir up dust. the baseboard far less, but it does, both systems warm the air warm air rises stirring up dust. radiant floor heating is by far the best way to go (hot water in the floor). it heats the floor not the air. heat DOES NOT RISE warm air rises., heat goes from hot to cold, heating the objects on the floor. no air moving......no dust. i apologize for the science lesson, but i have radiant heat in my house and it is amazing. it is cheaper to run and i don't dust. i could go on all night but i'll save you the blah blah blah.. the concept is very simple e-mail with any questions i'll be glad to answer them.
Tom

I used to have this problem with dust when I was in a similar situation as you. What I did was use the spare bathroom. I went in about 5 minutes before and took a waterbottle and sprayed the whole area, misting it if you will. Then took the rod and drying unit in there, applied finish and left. Be sure to shut the door, and shut off any HVAC vents.(do this an hour or two before, so you get the heated air out of there so it doesn't rise). If you can't do the bathroom thing, try misting whatever you can around your bedroom area. Misting doesn't eliminate dust, but may help it settle a little.

Just thought I'd drop my 2 cents. If there's a lot of traffic in the house, try putting on the finish after everyone goes to bed, when there's little or no traffic.Bob Vasko