I have used piles of REC guides over the years and the feet do vary a bit. In fact I only use REC guides on fly rods, both single and double foots. Roger is exactly right, just make the wraps a consistent length and don't worry about the length of the leg. It is not a thing anyone will ever notice, not even you. These are great guides and the shaping of this material at home is not easy. So
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So this seems like a remarkably good price for a utility fly rod. Anyone know about these? Were they made years ago? The tip size stands out to me. It's significantly larger than I would have expected. Any reason not to use one of these for Chuck and Duck Kenai fishing? Thinking about ordering a couple for a test run. Drew
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For a moderate priced blank, you will do no better than the RodGeeks fly rods. And a custom color for $15 more is hard to beat. They are almost an exact equivalent of the St Croix SC4/2 blanks that sadly are no longer available, except as a complete rod or a Rod Geek blank. I've built a bunch of them at this point and can't say enough good things. High quality and fair price. The only downsi
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Use any guides you want. I'd use REC titanium guides, likely in single foot unless rough handling is expected. The light wire double foots work really well if you're hiking in a lot of brush or otherwise need more durability. If cost is a factor, the Batson stainless are good and not expensive at all. For stripper guides again, it's personal choice. I virtually always use Fuji KW type gu
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Yep. And for my own personal 4 and 5 wt rods, they have a full wells grip and a small fighting butt. It's what I prefer even if it "looks funny" to others.
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Normal hot glue isn't very strong. A stick of rod building tip hot melt melts a a bit higher temperature and is very strong. $3.16 to get the right thing will be well worth it, and one stick of tip glue will last for years and dozens of rods. Here's another tip-when you get the tip glue, cut an inch off the stick and put it in your tackle box with a lighter for field repairs. Drew
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I agree that the REC guides are more expensive, 8@ $2.75 of them (enough for your average fly rod) costs $22 vs $11.00 for 8@ $1.39 H&H stainless guides. So you're looking at $13 more worst case, which hardly qualifies as "very expensive". In the scheme of salt water fly rods, $13 is nothing. And with the REC guides you have absolute freedom from corrosion for the life of the fl
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Bone fish means salt water, so rather than any stainless guides, I'd recommend REC titanium alloy guides. For the stripper guides, again the Fuji titanium K series work great. Single foot guides will work, but just for robustness, I generally prefer double foot guides.
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Sadly the St Croix reel seat kits are no longer available. These were great quality and reasonably priced. I hope they bring them back. But happily, Batson makes a decent handle kit with the cork already inlet, a shim for the reel seat and a buttcap for the very bottom. I have recently been using a bunch of these: That would work well for your 5 wt and won't break the bank. As you b
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Another vote for Devcon 5 minute. Every hardware store will have it. And if you can wait 24 hours the Devcon 2 ton is theoretically stronger and works well for most rod building epoxy tasks. Drew
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Since you plan to use in the salt, consider REC snake guides. They can't rust. For stripping guides, the Fuji titanium guides (TKWSG) work very well and also can't rust. I'd probably use size 3 snakes but 2s will work fine. Color is personal, but last summer I built a metallic red 9wt with matching thread color so the whole rod is red with titanium guides. It honestly looks great and I'm
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Another vote here for REC guides. The black ones are reliably black and have all the other advantages of the non-corrosive titanium alloy they use. Drew
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Herb-You must not be talking fly rods. But if you can cast a fly line 120 yards, I'll pay you for lessons! But we're not talking the same thing here. Fishing off the beach is a different animal. Drew
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It's all about the use, right? And who cares how far you can cast. If you can cast to fish, it's enough. Snake guides (I favor RECs) are super robust. Any kind of ceramics or minimas are not. They bend. So it's all about what you do with them. So if you hike through the alders all day, ceramic guides will not survive. They will bend at the base. Where snakes will shrug off any amou
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This is just my opinion. I've built a bunch of fly rods with ceramic guides. They are GREAT for fighting larger fish. Or fish in current. My experience is with salmon. But I don't think they cast as well as a fly rod with conventional snake guides. And if you are bashing through the bush, snake guides are much less fragile and far more resilient. Ceramic guides bend at the foot. They
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The custom color RodGeeks are really great. You're getting an excellent St Croix blank in any color they publish. It's a unique opportunity. I've been very happy with them. I've only built the fly rods and travel rods, for full disclosure, but very happy with both. Drew
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I've built 2 of the RodGeeks 4 piece travel rods. They are excellent and super compact when packed. Seriously, these are excellent fishing rods and uniquely short. I've never used the Batson ones mentioned, but they are likely good too. The really cool part about RodGeeks is the easy custom colors for $15.
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The space heater thing works like a charm. We don't heat one end of our house and when I have a rod in progress, I have a space heater with a temp control at 75F. It heats the small room I work in perfectly. The rest of the house will be about 60F but the rod building room is very warm and helpful in getting things done with no drama. Drew
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I'm going to say the best color preserver is NO color preserver. The finish soaks into the threads way better without it. It's a more subtle look without color preserver, but it's a better rod. There are many who will not have this opinion but try it for yourself and decide. Color preserver is an unnecessary, and undesirable step, in my opinion. Drew
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They are basically all the same chemistry and one coat over another should be fine. I've put PRoKote over Threadmaster light once and it was fine. But that's my one and only experience of mixing things up. Drew
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Impressive field repair! JB weld is strong stuff. Never used it in rod building, but I've used it to attach knife handle scales to good effect so should work fine. I have used the Devcon 2 Ton several times for reel seats and handles. It's messier than Rod Bond, but 100% satisfactory and it's available in every hardware store. I would almost swear it is the same stuff sold as FlexCoat ro
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I'm not saying for sure you did something wrong, but I suspect you did. Here's why. I use Rod Bond for every handle I have ever made from fly rods (mostly) to a few spinning rods. In 10 years, not one failure. Not even a hint of failure. I think the masking tape is your problem. It just isn't a good substrate. Drywall adhesive tape is way better because the epoxy can penetrate the open ma
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So, I'm on the fence. 5 min epoxy has been my go to for the 10 years I've been building fly rods (and a few spinning rods). It's never failed. Never. But this year, I built a 9 weight for a friend and used the Flex Coat heat glue. It failed the first day fishing on the Kenai. Now the cool part was, I could just heat it back up with a Bic lighter, re-melt the glue and re-install and be good
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Hmmm. Almost any rod building thread that isn't "color fast" will be translucent when epoxy is applied. I have used Gudebrod, ProWrap, and ThreadHawk. All are equally excellent. Gudebrod is no longer in business, but lots of their thread is out there and available. I will say that ProWrap from Mudhole is a good substitute for the traditional standby of Gudebrod. You can do a
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Rod Geeks. Very nice blanks, custom colors, good performance. Very similar (if not identical) to St Croix SCIV blanks. $106 plus a $15 custom color and you're still under budget. I'm normally not a "custom color" guy, but being able to order it for $15 and it's perfect means all my builds have a custom color. Their darker metallics are beautiful. Drew
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Thanks Roger but it's too late for that! Only the handle section and the guides came home from Alaska. The handle section is going to be a memento at my friend's mountain cabin, and the guides are going back on his new rod, since they are perfectly good REC fly guides and Fuji Titanium stripper guides. I've never repaired a rod, and so far been lucky that of the 4 or 5 our group has broken o
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Russ Amato Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thanks for All great feedback . After being a rod > builder for 15 years now , I have only seen one > rod failure . I had one this year. I built a nice rod from a well regarded brand for a very good friend in 2012. He's caught dozens of Coho salmon with it. He's a good caster and doesn't abuse the ro
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Russ-Sent reply to your email. Drew
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I'm going to go out on a limb and say they are fine, and it makes virtually no difference. Action vs action a modern high modulus rod blank will be a few grams lighter. If you need the absolute best, most up to date SCV blank or Sage blank, go for it, but usually you don't. What you really need is a good fly rod and a spare. It kind of depends on what you are doing, but in most cases you won'
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Russ-If Rod Geeks is in you budget, buy and don't flinch. They are excellent blanks and hard to get the same quality cheaper. You can save a bit by just getting the carbon with a clear coat (which saves $15). I've not fished for tarpon but for a big hard fighting fish, consider a 10 weight minimum and a reel with a really good drag. The reel is likely more important that the rod in this circu
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