The CTS blanks are not cheap but are amazing. The strength to weight ratio is incredible. I use their Affinity float series in the 12 foot to 13' 6'' range and am a huge fan of their product. Shipping from New Zealand does take some time, their customer service is good as well.
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Dean, I am not familiar with that river or the size of it but I am an avid Float fishermen, mostly steelhead trout. For a medium size river I use anywhere from an 11'6'' float rod up to a 13' 6'' rod. The rod length serves two purposes. One it enables you to keep tthe line off of the water giving you direct contact from the rod tip to the tip of the float, if you are doing longer drifts.. It als
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Thanks all. I apply the epoxy while the rod is spinning on the drying motor 11 RPM's It looks much easier with the power wrapper as you don't have to hold your hand steady for more than a second or two. The coffee filter trick should also be a help in a pinch
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I am fairly new to the rodbuilding world. To analyse my own work, my handles and reel seat work is good and my design wraps are progressing nicely as well. I also learned to get my epoxy free of bubbles and smooth as glass. My biggest issue is with the epoxy on the guide wraps. I would like to get clean uniform looking epoxy lines where the epoxy transitions from the wrap to the blank. I have use
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Ty for the education, you probably saved me future headaches.
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Bill, can you elaborate on not using a sharpie on stainless guide feet ? I have done it many times. What is the issue doing it ? Thanks in advance. Frank
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Mike, the newest issue of Rodmaker Magazine volume 14 issue 6 has a good picture of a float rod with a guide for the tip on page 24. Perfect timing.
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Mike, I have built many float rods. I always use a guide for the tip . When I started building them, I got advice from a few builders who built them this way. I would think the main reason is because many float rod builders use i high frame guides and the transition of the line to the top is much smoother.
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Thanks for the replys spent a lot of time on the design, didn't want to redo it.
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I did an open wrap design on a rod and used color preserver on the threads and tried to be careful not to get any on the blank in the open areas. It seems almost impossible not to get the CP on the blank. I must add that the blank was an Emerald green color. The CP dulled the shine on the blank. Does the shine come back if you epoxy over it, or do you try to somehow clean it off or do you just
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It is nice to get assistance from the members. It is greatly appreciated. I am just glad the problem arose on my own rod. I am staying away from that thread.
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Bill, E Mail me Fishes4em@Yahoo.com Let me know which manufacturer blank you need. Again I have Batson rainshadow, CTS Affinity and Raven guide spacing charts. I can attach the charts to an E Mail. Thank you, Frank
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Bill, what particular manufacturer of the blank. If it is CTS or Batson or Raven, I have the recommended guide spacing for them. You can start there and tweak them from there if you wish. Frank
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Thanks Fred and Bill After re wrapping and paying better attention to packing, They came out good. The other brands of thread I use must be more forgiving than this brand. The thread was quite a bit lighter than the blank and I usually do an under wrap beneath myopen wrap butt wrap design, but I ordered an Emerald green blank and wanted to see the color thru it. Again, Thanks for taking the ti
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Thanks for the reply Mike. It could be that that particular brand of thread is totally different somehow. I have used Gudebrod and Pro wrap and pack my threads and burnish the same every time. I am re coating it now and will see. Either way, I will not use that brand of thread again. Not gonna chance it.
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Just ran into a situation that I have not dealt with before. I wrapped a rod with thread that I have never used before Pac Bay Nylon. I cleaned the blank, made sure my hands were clean. used three coats of Threadmaster color preserver, I let all coats dry in betweeen and the third coat dried overnight. The color thread was a light sage green. I have done this same process many times with perfect
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Dremel with a diamond cutting wheel.
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Thanks for the input. That was my first post on this site. I guess i was asking spicifically if it is ok to get color preserver on the blank in the open spaces on an open design ?
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I always use NCP thread and metallic threads for design wraps. I have read on a number of sites that the colors on non NCP thread with CP comes out much nicer than with the NCP thread So I decided to experiment on some old rods of mine. I tried two different brandsof CP and followed the directions. On both of the rods, the designs were open wraps and I got some CP on the blanks where the desig
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