Bill, That sounds like some insane fishing! Thank you for sharing all that information. I'm sure it took a lot of time and effort to acquire. I recently experienced a taste of this kind of fishing off Mexico, out of San Diego. Fish were small, but the few I caught on poppers was a lot of fun. I'm looking into building both light and medium weight rods. I'm leaning toward building the lig
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That is awesome! Is there more?
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Thanks, Jerry, I will reach out to OTI. This would be for a spinning application. I'm interested in the opinions of other rod builders. I'm not set on the MNSG's, either.
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Hey fellow rod builders, I am looking into building a light tuna popping rod for school sized yellowfin. The OTI Ocean Xtreme Popping (7'10" 25-40LB OTI-3206-710) blank looks like it will fit the bill. I typically build conventional style rods so I'm not sure about what size of guides to use. I plan on going with Fuji MNSG. Can anyone recommend the proper sizes for a guide set? Tha
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Awesome, thank you!
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Back in the early 80's I built a steelhead casting rod from a kit. I believe it was a Loomis Composites before the G. Loomis/LCI split. The graphite trigger part of the reel seat came as a separate component. It was about equal in length to a cork ring. In fact, it was very much like a cork ring, except with a trigger hanging down and it was made of graphite. I'm interested in such a part th
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Mick, I liked your idea enough to try it using the lower foot in that manner. The wraps are on the drying motor. Thanks.
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If anyone can help me out, I'd really appreciate it. I have an 8 wt fly rod which I wrapped about 5 years ago. Recently I noticed the guide rings in the two strippers were cracked and sharp as razors. Before removing the guides I further noticed that the blank has a small nick in it – immediately adjacent and below one of the wraps. So where do I replace the double-foot stripping guide in
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Tony, You've been given advice from the best. Of course a lot has happened since the days Phantom Enterprises was turning out 20 to 50 rods per week! But before you go and select a blank, may I add that you should ask your friend what species, what size lures and what kind of water he'll be fishing. The term "whipping" encompasses a whole range in variety of light tackle beach fis
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Lou, awesome then, that's the information I was hoping to hear. Thanks for the rookie hint, as well. I've never worked with any of the offshore handles of this type.
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Has anyone ever attempted this? I'm considering trying this on a Seeker Black Steel 870 model. The reason is that it's the only 7 foot rod in my collection and I'd hate to drag a 7 ft tube to Mexico if I can get away with something shorter than 6 feet. My initial thoughts are to hack off the lower handle below the reelseat. Next using a cutting wheel (or dremel) to cut the reelseat longitud
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Thank you. I wasn't able to find that thread on my own. Somehow my rod building intuition told me a microwave was involved. Now if I could just get my hands on an autoclave, a mandrel hook up...
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In the 80's as a teen, I cut my teeth on a Loomis Composites (Pre-G. Loomis/Pre-LCI) 10' 6" 8/9 wt fishing for steelhead and salmon. It was a factory rod and had your basic 2" or 3" fighting butt with a half wells grip. I used that rod for close to twenty years before retiring it. Nice, slow, lazy caster. It feels like you're in slo-mo while loading it on the forward cast allow
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I've been away from building rods for a few years. Now I've just begun two rod projects as well as finally attending to some minor repairs to a couple of other rods. Anyway, I'm at the point where I need to mix up some Rod Bond. So I dug it up. However, being a few years old, the "resin" is too hard to work with. It's hard and waxy. Ironically, the "hardener" is it's ex
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