Norman, once again, thank you for the response. Very much appreciated. First I need to make a correction to my prior post, It's a 7L and not a 7M that I am using as the third reduction guide in the one example I gave spacing for. So with that out of the way. The rod I taped the Am Tak guides to is my drop shot rod. It's built on a 6' 10" blank. From the butt of the rod to the spool axle
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Norman, thank you very much for the response. It is very much appreciated. I really want to try and make this taller choke guide work because as I mentioned above, I really think it's going to help with 10# fluorocarbon line. Every one of my spinning rods use the same KR guide group. 20H, 10H, and 5.5M so to play around with the taller choke guide, I just taped the 20H and the 5.5L opposite of
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Probably what Spencer is talking about. Just scroll down to near the bottom of the page.
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Josh, I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions in your thread as well. There are a couple of threads that have run recently that have a 4 guide KR reduction train, and I want to try it on a rod I'm building right now. Since Norman is da man when it comes to the KR concept spinning guide trains I have some questions for him. Hope you don't mind. Norman, I ordered some of the American Tack
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Logan, I totally get you not being happy with a rod with an IP of 600, for popping a chatterbait out of weeds. It's the same as when you're needing to pop a lipless crankbait out of the weeds to trigger a strike. Simply pulling until it pops free doesn't generate the speed you need to clear the bait of weeds. So even though a 600 gram IP isn't necessarily horrible for chatterbaits, (my primary ch
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I'm going to be doing some more test wraps with a few new colors I've gotten recently. Also, we actually had sunny skies for part of this past weekend, so I took the rod I have the test wraps on, out into the sun to see what the colors will really look like when you're out fishing. I normally don't use different thread colors all that much. The majority of my wraps are black, or a silver smoke co
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You could always paint them and put a clear coat over them. I used to custom paint a lot of my hard baits, crankbaits, jerkbaits and the like. Createx is the brand of paint I used. It's water based and of course you'd want to airbrush it on, but they have some awesome color shifting paints. Once you paint something you let it dry, and then heat cure it. If I remember right you need 130 degree
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When doing my static load guide placement, I also do a CCS test for IP and AA, so I am hanging enough weight from the tip top, to constitute a fully loaded rod by CCS standards. I've hung as much as 1,015 grams from a tip top without causing any damage to the rod, or the tip top itself. Lately I've started doing CCS tests on bare blanks when I receive them. I use the smallest size tubing that
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I'll use something I've seen said more than a few times on this forum when someone has asked if a blank labeled as a spinning blank, can be used to build a casting rod, or vice versa ....." a blank doesn't know if it's being built as a casting rod or a spinning rod". Sound familiar to any participants of this thread? CCS measurements don't have a thing to do with what the blank
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El, you have no reason at all to rephrase the question. It's perfectly fine the way it is. The way I see it, CCS is a tape measure for a rod builder. A rod builder can use his tape measure as a stock boy at a lumber yard would, and use it only to compare the size of one piece of lumber to another. Or a rod builder can use his tape measure as a carpenter would, and use it to choose a piece of
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If you are doing a static load guide placement on a conventionally wrapped casting rod, why would you want to just turn the rod upside down? You're not going to be able to tell if the line will be touching the blank, which some people don't mind, but you also aren't going to be able to tell if the line goes below the blank, which you definitely don't want to happen. You don't want to over think
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Les, no problem at all weighing that kind of stuff for you, or even any others that may have questions like that. Oh and you asked how I go about making the little EVA numb. If you have a power wrapper or a lathe, it's not hard at all. I ordered a 7" straight EVA grip, from Get Bit I believe. I have an Alps "3/8" mandrel, (it's fatter than the 3/8" mandrel you get from Mud Hol
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Aleks, I really appreciate you taking the time to post this kind of information. Probably not many in your position would go to these lengths. I suspected that the specific amount of weight used to defect the retain, was also used to test the subsequent built blanks, but wasn't positive. What you posted and depicted, clears up any question I, or others might have had. Again, I really appreciate y
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I also have a build in process on an SB 724 X ray blank. You guys are right, the SB724 will make a dandy shaky head rod.
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Les, I don't have anything epoxied up yet, so weighing what I got is no problem at all. As I said, I got the size 17 Apex. I cut the thread barrel down 1/2". With the 3K insert made for it, it weighs 33 grams, or 1.17 oz. With the insert for the Fuji TVS, it weighs 32 grams, so virtually the same as with the American Tackle insert made for the Apex. I took 1" off the length of the Fuji
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Since I am loving this G2 Apex seat and mixing and matching parts to it, I figured I'd post links to a couple of pictures I took. This thing is sweet !!! First pic is a close up of the seat. The trim piece at the rear of the seat is an Alps TRS -17 in gold. The insert in the seat is a Fuji insert for their TVS reel seat. It's for a size 17 Fuji seat. Exactly one wrap of masking tape makes it
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A blank recommendation depends on what kind of rod power you like to fish a shaky head with. Some like an extra fast action, some, like myself, prefer a fast action. When I fish a shaky head the bait is Texas rigged. Or if I am using a shaky head with an EWG style hook, which is the style I prefer, then the bait is Texposed rigged. If you're Texposing a bait, IMO you can get away with a slightly
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I'm the customer / participant of this forum that Aleks mentions at the beginning of this thread. I was questioning why the butt diameter of two of the blanks I received were quite a bit different than the dimensions listed on the NFC web site. What he posted is a copy and paste from his reply to my e mail. I appreciated him taking the time to give me such a detailed explanation. Everything he sa
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Aleks, thank you ...... and outstanding !!!! Can't wait
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Justin, I only have experience with a few Rainshadow blanks. 6 different ones to be exact, and only one of them is an RX 10 Eternity (the other Eternity was an RX9) The only RX 10 blank I have experience with is the ETEC72M. I built it as a spinning rod, and it's probably the most sensitive rod I currently own. I hesitate to say whether I think the ETES68ML you're considering would be up to t
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In the RX 10 Eternity line up, if you're worried about the power of the ETES 68ML, you could bump up to the ETES 72ML. 30 more grams of power is equivalent to needing to hang another 1 oz on the tip of the blank to get the proper CCS deflection. You could also consider the ETES 72M. Rainshadow has jig and bait, and snap jigging in the recommendations for the 72M blank. Here are a coup
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Aleks, just curious if there is any updating of the non mobile app version of the forum in the works for us non cell phone type members. I belong to a more fishing oriented message board web site that when you click on a link to a thread, it takes you to the post right after the last post you viewed. Also it would be awesome if you could post a thumbnail version of a picture into a thread th
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I use a toothpick. All guides facing up, drops of finish on the end of the toothpick and I start at the end of the foot furthest from the ring, I coat it quite liberally to insure it soaks in. I every guide before coming back to start putting finish on the rest of the wrap. I'm quite liberal with the amount of finish I put on my wraps. Once I get all the wraps done I let the rod sit, and allo
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Les, that Alps TRS will fit in either end of the G2 Apex seat. As I said above, I got the Apex in a size 17 so all of the parts I've tried interchanging into it, are other manufacturers size 17. When I was ordering the seat and some trim parts I was planning on installing the seat down locking so I was looking for a way to add a bit of color between the end of the seat, and where it would butt up
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Ryan, glad to see you found it useful. And the Forged Steel is really IMO a beautiful color. I have a build planned (just waiting on the blank and grip to get here) that I will be using the Forged Steel on. I'm thinking no trim band, but I may see what a 2 or 3 turn accent wrap using Alps 9011 metallic thread. in the middle of the wraps looks like . The Alps thread is like a dark titanium chrome
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Got my G2 Apex reel seat in the mail today. It's going to be my new go to reel seat on spinning rod builds. IMO it is really sweet looking. I got a size 17, and I ordered the 3K insert that is made for it, as well as one of the inserts for a size 17 Fuji TVS reel seat. The Fuji insert fits in the Apex quite nicely. The OD of the Fuji TVS insert is .659". The OD of the insert for the Ape
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Ron, while that definitely gets you the closest to what the thread will look like with just finish on it, I don't find it to add that bit of translucency to the thread like just finish does. Maybe that's just me .... but yeah, it definitely gets you real close.
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Did a little more changing .... I figured it was pretty stupid not to list the thread color beside the links. I mean the idea is to be able to check out what certain thread colors look like with just finish on them. Who wants to click on a bunch of links just to see if one of them is a particular thread color they may be curious about. So with that said, the links now have the thread's number
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I usually go a little over on the blank, but it's not always because I do it intentionally. I just don't have the steadiest of hands these days, so ..... When I go over too much I just use a folded over sharply creased paper towel with at least 90% isopropyl alcohol on it, and slide it along the blank to the edge of the wrap. As far as going slightly over on to the blank to mitigate water in
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Richard, thank you for the reply. Much appreciated. And doing half a wrap with finish and half just the thread itself is an awesome idea !!!! Hope you don't mind if I copy that process for posting further pictures? And different blanks colors make a big difference. It's like back in the day when I was a bit of a gear head. I had a friend that did custom paint jobs, I remember two particular
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