Paul, the Immortal IMMC72MH blank you mentioned is an awesome blank. Very very sensitive, with gobs of power. I built a rod on it that I use for pitching and flipping. If you're looking for a blank that will move fish on the hook set and get them out of heavy cover, while still being able to pretty much count pebbles, then it would be your blank. I absolutely love the rod I built on it. If I
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Thomas. I really appreciate your thoughts. Thank you. I think I am going to give the Rod Geeks C4610mxf a shot. It sounds like what I am looking for, and it has the blank dimensions that will work with the grips I just got in from Utmost. Thanks again !!
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Aleks, thank you very much for the response, and link. That's a blank that I am sure will receive a lot of interest from bass tournament anglers. I know a few guys that would put the claim of it not breaking if it's high sticked, to the ultimate test. lol Thanks again.
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Thomas, thank you for the quick response. Very much appreciated. I just want to be clear on something. ETEC was the designation for a casting blank in the Eternity series. Just want to be sure we are talking about the same Eternity blank. I am talking about the spinning blank. If we are talking about the ETES 610MXF blank, then I am glad to hear that you feel the St Croix blank has a whole lo
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Spencer and Thomas. Thank you very much for your responses. I truly appreciate them. Spencer, I'm not surprised at your response. I kind f figured the tip on the xf was going to be softer. How would you say the back bone is on 68MXF? I guess what I'm asking is what percentage of the blank is soft tip before it shuts off and becomes back bone? And Thomas, since you have experience with the sci
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The new NEO blank? I haven't heard of this yet. Aleks, what exactly does NEO mean? Definitely peaked my interest. Thank you for any information you can provide.
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I have two rods built on the MB 736 X ray blank. IMO a 3/4 oz jig (plus trailer) would be pushing it for that blank. But I prefer my rods to have power to spare. It's a crazy good blank though. I use the rods I built on them primarily for 3/8 oz (plus trailer) football jigs or 1/4 oz tube jigs in deeper water, for smallmouth bass. It also makes an awesome Senko and mid weight Texas rig rod. Not a
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I'm looking to build another spinning rod. I had built a 7' medium power rod on a Hydra NG series blank. It's a nice rod, but probably because I had unrealistic expectations, I've never been completely happy with it. So instead of having yet another rod that isn't being used sitting around the house, I'm selling it to my tournament partner. I've let him use it for a couple of days, and he loves i
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Paul, one thing about micros on spinning rods versus casting rods is, if your leader connection knot happens to hang up a little in one of the guides on a spinning rod, it's not going to back lash your reel all to heck.
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Gary, I definitely agree that this is a very interesting conversation. I am very surprised by the measurements and specs you provided for the blank that you mentioned in your opening post. That's a smallish butt diameter compared to the blanks I've built on. The tip is in the range of what I would expect from a medium to medium heavy powered rod, but measurements can be deceiving. What really ge
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You could look on North Fork Composites web site. That's Gary Loomis' company now. Nothing there that matches exactly, but you may be able to find something in a 6' length and trim 2" off the butt.
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Gary, first let me thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it. But now I have to say that like Norman, we have different perspectives on rod powers. And that's to be somewhat expected, but based on your assessment of the Eternity 610MXF blank, we are further apart in our perspectives than I thought we might be. Of course there's nothing wrong with that .... it's just surprising to me. To me, t
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I'd like to thank you for the update. It's refreshing to see a business out front of their situation. Great job !!!!
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Gary, if you go by the CCS chart for named actions and their corresponding AA's, you'll see that by CCS standards, anything with an AA higher than 66 is considered as fast action. The CCS is just a standardized system to compare one blank to another. And it's an excellent tool for doing that. But, if I am interpreting your post correctly, you like me, believe it is based on fly rods, and for tha
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I have a rod that is built on a Rainshadow Eternity2 ETES 610 MXF blank. The IP number I came up with on that rod is 346g, The Eternity blank was designed for fishing a drop shot, so it probably has a lot softer upper half of the blank than the rod you have. The AA on the Eternity blank is 79. Anyhow, as far as power goes. The rod I am speaking of is woefully under powered for anything but sm
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I knew Norman would have the skinny on the PB701MLF. Like Norman, I have no idea what kind of power the Clarus rod you're mentioning has, nor do I have any experience with Point Blank blanks, so anything I offer is purely speculation. With that said, I very familiar with the Shimano Compre and Crucial rods of that era. If I remember correctly, when the Clarus was introduced it was the rod series
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Point Blank PB701MLF. .558 butt, 4.5 tip. Medium light fast action 1/16- 3/8 oz baits. Norman Miller will most likely have the skinny on that blank. Hopefully he checks in and can share his thoughts. Norman is pretty much da man around here when it comes to the blanks from Point Blanks. Actually he's da man on a lot of things. but he knows a lot of numbers for the Point Blanks.
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Isn't it better to let the blank tell you how many guides it needs, rather than telling the blank how many guides you're going to use on it?
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As everyone has said, they sand very easily. So easily that I personally wouldn't see a need to start with a 200 grit paper. I did mine (2 X ray blanks) starting with 320, then to 400, and finally on one of the blanks, a grey Scotch Brite pad. The Scotch Brite pad gave the blank a slight shine, similar to satin finish paint. I was careful not to damage the blank. I went just enough to where t
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smh
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The tenons on the CFX grips I have used have had an O.D. of .750". If the butt measurement you supplied is correct, after reaming to fit you should have had about 1/16th of an inch of tenon surrounding the butt of the blank. Anyhow .... if it makes you feel any better, I had the same thing occur when I did my very first foam core grip. So speaking from experience lol, even though the teno
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David, I must be misunderstanding what you're saying. The first part of what you said is obvious. Of course the line doesn't touch the bail wire until it closes on it. If it did it wouldn't cast very well. If you're saying the line doesn't touch the bail wire until the reel's line roller picks it up, then you are mistaken. The bail wire, by contacting the line, guides the line to the reel's l
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Tom, regarding your finding with the different finishes. That is awesome information you posted. Not only helpful, but very interesting. I know I appreciate the amount of time you took to post it. To answer your question, no I don't any long or extravagant wraps. I've yet to even put a decal on any of the rods I've built. Just guide wraps. Although I did do some marbling on one of the factory
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I put line on my spinning reels the same way I put line on my casting reels. The only exception is that for spinning reels I have the line coming off the bottom of the spool, and for casting reels it comes off the top of the spool. This whole lay the the spool flat on the floor or make sure the line goes this way or that, has never worked for me. I actually get less twist doing it the way I d
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Can't help on the dark spot, but you are going to love the rod you build on that blank. I use the rod I built on the same blank, for flipping and pitching for largemouth bass. It is one awesome rod. I am sorry to hear that they are no longer sanding the IM blanks. I purchased my blank last year about this time, and it was sanded from the factory. If you ask me they are doing a disservice by not
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If you were using fluorocarbon or regular nylon mono filament as the main line, then I'd say line twist like others have said. But you said braid, which makes me think there are factors other than line twist in play. Yes braided line twists, but its extreme suppleness means that it takes a lot of twist before it starts showing up as twist induced tangles. Personally I don't use braid on spinn
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I'm with Grant here. My first endeavor into working on rods was replacing the guides on 3 of my factory rods. They actually turned out very well, except that they looked like footballs, and the single foot guides had finish running up the legs. When I joined this site I spent a lot of time on the photo section, looking at the work of others. The finish on their wraps was nice and flat. I wanted m
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I've trimmed the MVT casting seats threads with zero problems. It cuts like any other "graphite" reel seat. Personally I use a copping saw with a very fine tooth blade. It works great. As far as something to cap off the end of the reel seat goes ... you might want to consider something that I do, and make a little nub (for lack of a better word) that is turned down to the same OD as
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Colby, as this man has helped you out in such a kind way, I can certainly understand you wanting to build this rod for him. Knowing this, I would do the same. I will say that I don't envy you in this endeavor. Not because he has a problem breaking rods, but because based on him wanting a "broomstick", it may be tough finding a blank that isn't overly tip heavy. You bass fish, so you kn
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I've been following this thread and I could be wrong, but here is what I think ....... no way is this guy breaking rods on the hook set, and if he is he has done something to damage the blank prior to it breaking on a hook set. And my guess is that he has high sticked it either in trying to free a hung up bait, perhaps trying to pull a fish out of cover, or by boat flipping a fish the wrong way,
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