Hey mate, I have built 5 rods using CTS blanks. I have two rods built on the Baycaster 7 ft 15-24kg. Last fish I caught on this rod was a 15kg Sampson fish from 80 metres of water. The rod handled the 35 minute fight no problems. The other rods I have built was a 7ft, based on the top level blank 10 - 20lb. (cant remember its name). the last fish it caught wqas a 4 foot wobegong from 15 metre
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Hi Keith, good to hear that you are ok and thank you for the safety share. I work in the mining industry and we always like to share incidents to ensure that it doesn't happen to others. Thanks for taking the time to share with us. I would also add to your saftey brief, long shirt sleeves, necklaces or anything loose and dangling as these can caught in rotating machines. regards Adam
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Hey mate, I am an amatuer rod builder also. I used to have probelms with waves and footballs as your describe. I also loved to take my time with the epoxy. I saw a video once, cant remember which one, and it stated the quicker and rougher the better with the epoxy. Let it do the work. This seemed counter intuitive to me and uncomfortable as I always wanted to spend so much time getting it perf
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Hi Dave I use A for underwraps and A for double overwraps for heavy saltwater. I regularly fish in 80 - 120 metres of water for Amberjack, Cobia etc. (Australia) Never had an issue. When the underwrap is on, I apply a very thin coat of epoxy. Very thin means you can still see the individual threads show through. Then overwrap first layer with A, again a thin coat of epoxy. Then second over
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I use underwraps on the first 3-5 guides on all my saltwater rods. The tips I dont usually worry about. The only reason I use them, as stated above, is for the bling factor. I cant crosswrap, so I add the all the trim rings etc on the underwraps. My normal fishing is in 80 - 100 metres of water offshore. I have pulle doff many guides and never seen a guide "mark" a blank. even when
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Hi Hal I am located in Australia and I purchase many thousands of dollars of fishing equipment from the USA. I can offer some limited advice from the purchase side. 1. The biggest issue we face OS pruchases of rods is breakage or damage in transport. Use rod tubes, reinforcement have FRAGILE printed everywhere and use reputable carriers with insurnace. e.g. FEDEX is awesome. 2. Austral
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Another one from AU. I can get items quicker from Mudhole than Mo-Tackle in Coffs Harbour. Not just once, several times. Fed Ex is unbelievable and Mudhole are pretty good also. The best for me is the packaging of rod blanks for international travel. They have arrived safer than what I have ordered here in Australia.
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As Mike said or use a hand drill. Put a bolt through the new spool, tighten nut on other end and away you go. Put the maderia spool over dowel or the like.
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Hi Ross, I live on the East Coast of Australia and like you have so many fihsing options at my doorstep. Everything from river, estuary and reef and offshore fishing. There is also freshwater fishing, but I'm just not into that. I mainly fish offshore and estuary. Our offshore fishing has two seasons (although the fish can be caught all year round). The summer season is for the pelagics -
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I have just purchased the new St Croix SCII NSi Offshore blanks. they are small diameter (16mm butt) and rated 45-65lb for braid. Feels reel good in hand. Looking to build as a spinning rod also. Dollies are something we chase also in OZ. According to St Croix the new NSi is pretty flash. Haven't fished the rod yet so cant report on performance. For deep salt water (and large Pelagics), I als
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Hi Roger What about these blanks from CTS fishing in NZ? ES6600 6'6" 2-8lb 1pc 1/32-3/16oz XX Light Ex Fast ES660 6'6" 2-8lb 1pc 1/16-1/4oz XX Light Ex Fast ES700 7'0" 2-8lb 1pc 1/16-1/4oz XX Light Ex Fast ES661 6'6" 4-10lb 1pc 3/32-1/4oz Ex Light Ex Fast ES662 6'6" 6-12lb 3pc 1/8-7/16oz Light Ex Fast I have made rods based on the 12-25lb and fish o
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Here is something to make you think. The gecko, a lizard that can walk upside down on glass etc doesn't have smooth feet it has textured feet. In fact, its gripping ability is due to the microscopic hairs, giving it such a large surface area to grip on. The threads above are on the right track, the larger the surface area to contact the better the grip. This can be achieved by a textured surface
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I'm using the Pro Wrap metallic thread and I have found you can burnish it without damage. In fact it comes up pretty good. These are just on underwraps and for trims so done pretty quickly with very small gaps and not heaps of tension. I have also changed thread tensioner from teh one that used to compress the thread (was horrible on metallics, it used to delaminate them) to the type where threa
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Hi Hunter, Yes Graphite USA is now called United Composites. I have built blanks from the old Graphite USA and United Composites and the new stuff is heaps better. Regards Adam
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Hi Terry, slightly heating epoxy makes it very thin. It is spring in Australia and is currently just over 90 degrees F, epoxy at room temp is only just more viscous than water. Pot life is significantly shorter though. I cant notice a huge difference to winter when it reaches a very chilly 50 degrees F here in QLD (LOL). regards Adam
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Hi Bill, I use size 8 guides (AMTAC) on my rods. I use 50lb braid and then 60 or 80lb mono wind in leaders. I use the bimini twist in the braid and use a cat paws to attached the dacron loop in the wind on leader. I have even used 100lb mono wind on leader in this set up with the size 8 guides. Never had a problem casting (although we dont cast much for bottom bashing or trolling) and never had t
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Hi Steve Try this guy from Australia. His name is Anthony and he has some New Old Stock (NOS) of Fuji Guides from the 1980's His email address is: az.geo@yahoo.com Currently on his @#$%& site he has complete sets of Fuji NOS from the 80's. Hope this helps? Regards Adam
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Hi All I build rods for my own use and have only been doing so for a couple of years. The articles and library on this forum are excellent. One such article I found in this forum's Library section is titled "New Guide Concept - Spinning Rods", when you open the article it is from RodMaker Magazine V10 #4 and in the introduction it states "In the last issue we discussed guid
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Hi Robbie, I have removed a few reel seats, both aluminium and graphite. I built these rods so I knew what was under the reel seat, i.e. masking tape arbors. I used a dremmel with a fine cutting disk, running down two sides. Then simply levered the reel seat off. I mention about the arbors as I knew i had approx 3-5mm between the reel seet and the blank and knew I would NOT damage it. Regards Ada
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G'Day I'm from Brisbane Australia. Over here we have a rod called the E.Grell S10. The specs of are: 7' 3-10kg(6-20lb) 1-20g (1/16-3/4oz). Eric Grell, the designer and builder of these rods has a legendary status. These rods, regularly pull in fish well over the 15 - 20kg (~40lb) mark. If you look at his website egrell.com.au you will quickly see why this rod has this following wit
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