I recently purchased the American Tackle power wrapper with upgrade aluminum chuck, I spent just over four bills for it after all was said and done. This purchase represents a huge investment into my rod building at almost four times the cost of my old standby sully rod dryer and stand. I built over 15 rods on the the sully unit and my last rod really turned out great, I also had a drying box I u
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After straying from fuji guides for a while and getting what i consider to be defective product from other guide manufacturers I am now back with Fuji. I usually use Alconites on most of my builds and I have been very happy with them, I also do not see the need to go titanium at least for freshwater that I fish. What I was really dissapointed in the most from other guide manufacturers was t
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I also have been using single foot guides as the tip top on all my personal rods. I have never had a problem with the fuji Hardloys or Alconites, solid Titanium Fujis also have been good. I am also building a 11' 9/10 WT Switch rod right now and it uses Three solid Titanium Batson Stripper guides and all the rest of the guides are Pac Bay Titanium Minima's including the tip top as a single foo
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The finish was barely starting to set and it was still very sticky when the error occured. I cutt off the epoxy that was making the small hills and then I recoated the wrap today, it looks good. The main problem was the small hairs that the epoxy picked up when the wrap brushed against the rod support, I dont have a roller system yet, just felt covered supports. Once that cures all I ha
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If I had actually used my brain I could have avoided this whole issue. What i should have done was went over to the drying motor and back off the tip section off its masking tape arbor near the female end, and then it would have been converted to a hand turner, instead I panicked and tried to re-invent the wheel, and just made things worse. It is just one guide though, I guess I can live with
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Has anyone else had a power outage while rod building? Did you panick? Epoxy is still very difficult for me, I still have a bit of nervousness when applying it, so anything that goes wrong just affects me even more. I am getting better slowly.
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Today while finishing up my Seeker 1056 Great Lakes Trolling rod build I had a freak power outage while turning the long tip section, I was about 2 hours into the cure cycle on the Flex Coat High Build epoxy. I admit it, I panicked. I feverishly tried to convert over to hand turning by re-arranging my drying box set up, well it did not work out so well in the dark, and i ended up bumping the very
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Since I am building a Trolling rod I have decided to try the spar varnish, I dont really want a glossy look, so I am going for two light coats, three at the most, and maybe some light sanding to give some extra tooth for grip. Hopefully it works out, not really worrried about the weight its already a brick house of a rod. (Seeker 1056) Thanks for the ideas and pics.
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Are there any other options? I am building a Great Lakes Trolling rod and I want my foregrip to be sealed. Would spar varnish be too heavy?, what about two light coats?
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Thanks for the replies. I have not yet posted on the Lamiglass forums, I saw there were a few posts like mine with no replies, so I did not post there.
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What are the specs for a Lamiglass SH-109-2F Blank. I am looking for line, lure weights and the other stuff. Also when was this blank made, looks to me like its 70's, but I could be wrong.
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I used a St.Croix sc2 9' 8wt as a sprial wrapped baitcaster for years and it was a great rod. It had a slightly slower action at moderate-fast, but I like that better personally. The rod cast great with spoons and spinners in the 1/2 oz range. I used up to 14lb test on it, 10 and 12lb were the sweet spot in my opinion. You will like what you end up with.
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I just finished a 12' rod in this configuration and it turned out great. I used the dale clemens style of spiral wrap. The only thing that I changed was to add one more middle casting guide. 16, 12, 12, and then a single foot 10, after that all single foot 8's. I added the extra double foot casting guide in size 12 because I use heavier lines and the pressure was quite severe on the middle guide,
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I just built a 12' Anglers Roost Enterprises 7/8 spey blank into a casting rod for the exact same purpose. A casting rod of that length is really a swiss army knife, I dont understand why more anglers in the Great Lakes dont fish this way. Its really liberating to have one rod do so much. The rod turned out great, sprial wrapped with fuji alconites. I also counterbalanced the rod a bit and it
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You can use fairly heavy line for spoons and spinners, the fish concentrates on the movement of the object, not on the line. Overall, 10-20lb test is a good range for this type of fishing. If you are fishing the great lakes go 8-12 or 8-17lb. If you are fishing other areas like the Pacific Northwest then you can go heavier if bigger fish are found there, otherwise the medium ratings I listed shou
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This just happened to me this week. And I did have to pay the return shipping. The blank looked like it was dragged behind a car and then put back into the package. I still dont understand how this even happens, what rod builder would even accept that kind of blank? We want our rods to look better than, not worse than, factory models!
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When you get around to the steelhead blanks, a 10', 6-15lb, 1/4 to 5/8 oz would be perfect!
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Thanks for all the replies. I ordered a 9' seeker blank in 8-20lb test flavor, I will try that one out and see how I like it. S glass blanks do sound sweet thought, just make sure you make a few that are medium power. Not all fisherman fish BC for 30lb steelhead!
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Thanks for the replies. I might order a seeker blank and see for myself if it would work for me, its really hard to tell on paper. Perhaps that might put my fears of reel seat problems to rest. If I order a shorter blank the butt size wont be as big a deal as the 10' I was looking at. (I like longer rods).
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I am a steelheader, over the years I have been moving more and more towards pulling plugs. In head to head testing a moderate action rod beat out the moderate fast action rods every time. The absolute best of this type of rod is a moderate action fiberglass rod. Well once I finally came to this conclusion via hard field testing I was ready to build up some rods. Now lamiglass has discontinued the
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I am rebuilding an old fiberglass 7'6" JC Higgins 6wt fly rod that was my grandfathers, the rod needs a new Furrell for sure. I was thinking about making a spigot furrell for it out of some old graphite shaft I had lying around. The graphite has got to be better than metal right? Certainly more flexible? I know guys have done this using solid fiberglass shafting or old scrap fiberglass
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That helps a lot. Thanks for the replies. I have completely rebuild 3 rods using only the blank, everything else was new. The experience of stripping off the components and removing cork and reel seats should be a good starting point. I will take the advice and get more practice. I took photos of one of them and the transformation was nice. Thanks for the tips, I will be building more rods
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Right now repairing seems like the better option but I am sure at some point I will get asked "Can you build me a custom rod?". I am not really set up for custom cork work and there are many builders with lathes and all the tools and accessories that go with it. I can see where 4k could be invested easily. I have the tools for repair work for sure. I want to do something and repairi
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Thanks for the replies. I have some different ideas and some that have been mentioned already. I would specialize like was mentioned, that makes sense. I live in western Michigan and I know there are some builders in the area just not sure how much repair work they are getting. Perhaps there is a need for more not sure on that one. Good idea to start with that though.
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Thanks for the words of encouragement and advice! Good to hear your having a good time. My main concerns would be what to do about some sort of warranty for the rod itself and what to do when a rod blank breaks? How to handle such things. More of my questions are nitty gritty things so to speak.
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I would say that I offer things that a OEM cannot. -properly prepared guides -properly spined blanks -custom butt weaves on each rod -properly spaced guides that distributes stress more evenly -color schemes not offered by OEM's -Better guide choices (like no size 5's on a winter steelhead rod) - grip lengths and reel seat styles not offered by OEM's OEM's are not willing to put this
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What would be the feasibility of a small time rod building operation to generate some extra part-time income. The reason I ask is why get a second job doing fast food or anything else when I could put my skills to work doing something I love. Not only that but finding any job right now is almost impossible in michigan. I already have tons of equipment, and my skills are adequate enough to do 1
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Something I forgot to mention earlier is that the masking tape arbor is only 1/4" wide (this means vertically its only 1/4" deep), its pretty narrow masking tape. I was able to remove a bit more tape today. The rest of the tape feels very loose in the blank but I still can not grab it. Unfortunately the tape has slid down really far into the tip section, its now about 12" from the
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Okay update time. I tried the tool I made earlier with the spring glued to the end of a graphite shaft. The spring broke off the end while using the tool and then the shaft broke right after that. I though this tool would work but it was not up to the task. scratch that. So i bought a huge magnet from the local hardware store that could supposedly lift 95 pounds, well come to find out the m
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Its less of a adhesive problem and more of a super tight fit problem, I have tried suction with a really large syringe attached to the blank with some tubing, it was powerful suction, couldn't believe it didn't work. I even slightly heated the blank for one minute with some gentle heat to expand the blank with no results. I also tried a mini plunger used on sinks with no results either. Suction i
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