Tom, thank you for the response. It definitely helps, and is very much appreciated. To answer your question concerning my hand placement when holding a rod and reel. I'm right handed, and use a right hand retrieve reel. Depending on the needs of the bait I'm using, I either cast with my right hand and then switch the rod to my left hand during or after the cast, or as in the case of flipping o
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I'd like to jump in with a question for Matt, if I may? Matt? from looking at the pictures you posted, which look very sweet BTW, it appears as if there may not be any threads exposed once your reel is mounted on the rod. Is that the case? The reason I ask is .... I'm going to be building a rod shortly, and will not be using a fore grip. Not being a big fan of having my finger rest on the t
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The Fuji Alconite guides are nice. I believe the rings are thinner, and a bit lighter than their SIC, as well. I've also used a set of American Tackle GBRLC ring lock with Nano Plasma rings that are nice. The nice thing about the nano plasma rings is that you can't get the rings in several different colors. On the set I used I went with gold rings and they really look sweet.
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Joe, the only one of those blanks I have built on (I've only built 4 rods thus far) is the Rainshadow RX7 crankbait blank. Awesome blank !!! Nice and straight, flawless finish on the blank, very light, and a super smooth action. I built a 6' rod from a trimmed down CB66MH blank that I use to throw 1.5 and 2.5 square bills, and some fairly large wakebaits and it's perfect for them. I also thr
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Just to clarify what my personal definition of an accent wrap is. A trim band is at one end of a wrap, an accent wrap is within the main wrap. Some things to think about that could influence the number or turns you choose to use are ..... Thread size. A larger diameter thread being more visible, would require fewer turns to achieve the same effect as a smaller thread, would. Thread colo
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Now that I understand Roger's idea better through reading Bill's post. I like the idea of drilling a hole through the cap, and filling the syringe by turning the bottle upside down. Little if any waste of material. And the ability to almost completely empty the bottle. I like it !!! And little tips like this is just another example of why I find myself saying ........ this place rocks !!!
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I just wipe them down with alcohol after use. It may waste a little of each material, but I can store them pretty much anywhere, without worrying about making other things sticky.
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If I were in the same position as the OP, there is no way I would build this guy another rod, and I'd also tell him not to bother bringing back any of the rods I had already built for him, if he has a problem with them. As Michael just recently said, you don't want this guy at any cost. If you're worried about him bad mouthing you on a fishing forum, or even in tournament circles if he ha
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I haven't broken any of the 4 rods I've built thus far. Over the years I've broken three rods, and knocked the ring out of the tip top on another. All of them were my fault. Picking up a rod without noticing the tip had slipped under a cleat on the boat claimed two of them. Sticking the rod tip in to cover trying to free a stuck bait claimed the other broken tip and the knocked out ring on th
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Still being a newbie to rod building I haven't built on many different kinds of blanks, but you may also want to take a look at the Pac Bay, Quickline series of blanks. Although being a little longer than you mentioned, I just built two drop shot / shaky head jig rods for bass on QLSJ782 blanks, and they turned out to be awesome rods. Light, and very sensitive, with a beautiful gloss black finish
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disparate ...... dis- pa- rate (1) Fundamentally distinct or different in kind; entirely dissimilar: (2) Containing or composed of dissimilar or opposing elements: desperate ....... des-per-ate 1 a : having lost hope b : giving no ground for hope And there's nothing wrong with pimping a possibly superior product
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Utmost Enterprises sells them. Carol and Mick are both awesome people to work with. Excellent customer service, and their shipping is the least expensive shipping I've found thus far. $16.00 to ship a 6'6" rod blank from Washington state to northeast Ohio, and it gets here 2 or 3 days after it ships? That is outstanding in anyone's book. In fact, I just received a price quote from them f
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A shorter guide will lessen the amount of twisting torque as well. More than a few years ago I had the guides on a 5'6" bait casting spinnerbait rod replaced. The person put guides on it that were taller than the guides that came on it from the factory. With a fish on, the rod twisted so badly that at times it was a struggle to keep the rod oriented properly. Especially if I had a big fish o
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I was researching building a flipping rod earlier in the year, From what I read about the M1 is that it has a nano tech resin system. That may be a reason for the blank being lighter than the Ultra blank. I read a review of the M1 72 H factory rod from Phenix on Tackle Tour's web site, and the person doing the review said the M1 blank seemed to be slightly less sensitive than Phenix's Recon. This
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I use Pro Wrap metallic as well, and know the problem you describe. You may want to try doing your trim bands differently? The way I do my trim bands is something I picked up from watching a Youtube video. It doesn't require the spool of metallic to be mounted at all, and works quite well. Just a couple things to mention from the video that helped me. First, when you lay the loop that
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lol Russ. Yes, that can be a problem when you're getting those pesky bluegill pulling on the tail of your worms. I have the same thing happen from time to time when I'm fishing a Roboworm on a shaky head jig. Personally, I'd put up with the occasional no or half worm coming back, over having to constantly slide the worm back up on the hook. Honestly, I'd go with the Wide Gap Plus I mentioned i
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Alistair, I wondered the same thing when I used the KR GPS to build the two spinning rods I just built. As you said, not all reels in a specific size class have the same spool lip diameter. My assumption was and is, that they simply averaged them out to come up with the dimension the software uses for its calculations. I use all Shimano reels so I'm not familiar with the spool sizes of Daiwa,
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Question? I've read in more than a few places that acetone will damage a graphite blank. If that is in fact true, wouldn't acetone be the last thing you'd want to thin your finish with?
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I use a coping saw, and then if needed, I square up the cut end with a sanding block using 220 grit sand paper. I've used the coping saw to trim blanks as well.
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Russ, my first question would be .... I hope you're planning on using the "fat" version of the 4.5" straight tail Roboworm? If not, unless you're using a hook with a twist lock to secure the nose of the worm, you're going to go through baits pretty quickly if you're Texas rigging. Simply because any hook stout enough to keep a 5 pound bass out of cover, is going to have an eye that
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Joe, thanks very much for the response. I was hoping you would, and I'll definitely be shooting you an e mail. Or actually a message on OGF if that's ok with you? After writing my post to this thread I did a little investigating to see if I could find a reason for such a large discrepancy in the two choker distances. I had read other threads mentioning the up sweep of different reels, but did
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I just finished building my third and fourth rods respectively, both of them identical spinning rods. And I've got to say that spinning rod guide trains were, and still are a mystery to me. Having watched Joe do an excellent presentation on spinning guide placement, at an Ohio Rod Builders gathering helped my understanding of how to place guides immensely. He answered all of my questions, as well
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Feel more bites? From what? Mosquitoes, because it's made your veins stand out by cutting off the circulation in your forearm? Definitely a gimmick.
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William, having only built three rods, I'm a newbie as well. As you've already seen, you've come to the right place. Every member here is quite willing to help newbies out. I''d talked to Joe Vanfossen before meeting him at an Ohio Rod Builders gathering earlier this year. and he is extremely helpful, and knows his stuff. As do a lot of members of this site. I'm surprised that nobody has ment
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Bill, thanks for responding again, and for your suggestions. I really appreciate them. Your suggestion of putting the starts and pull throughs at the bottom of the rod as it's fished is a good one, and one that I been doing with the two other rods I've built thus far. They were both casting rods. The rod I've been speaking about in this thread is a spinning rod. Not wanting the starts and pull
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Wow !!! A whole bunch of great responses. I hope you all don't mind me using a collective thank you, and very much appreciated as acknowledgement of you all taking the time to help me out. I truly do appreciate it. I ended up doing a test wrap with an old guide and a spare piece of blank I had lying around, Since I was torn between two colors, I did the test wrap with the darker of the two. I
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Chris and Phil, thank you both very much for your responses. They are very much appreciated, and are exactly what I was hoping to hear. Once again, thank you. Bill, thank you for your response as well. It too is very much appreciated. And yes, the thread is regular nylon. And from reading past posts about the effect finish has on thread that isn't sealed with CP, I knew to expect a color chang
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When I first started thinking about building rods for myself, I knew I'd have things to learn along the way. Well .... I learned one of them about 10 minutes ago. It's something that if I would have really thought about before I did it, I would have known it wasn't a good thing to do. In my own defense, other than metallic trim bands, I had only ever wrapped with black thread, so I had no reason
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Chris, thats a great idea. And something I wish I had been doing for a while. When I think of all of the rods I've given away while updating to newer rods, I'd have a jungle of usuable blanks. Actually I probably would have kept them to rebuild if I knew I was going to get into rod building. And Bill, thank you for the name of that web site. Those are some of the prices I was hoping to find wh
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Hey there John. Thank you for responding again. I appreciate it. I had thought about using a wooden dowel sanded to fit, but I wasn't too sure about using wood, because of possible problems with thermal stability. I'd thought I'd found a rod that would serve as a sacrificial lamb (a 13' telescoping crappie rod) but when I got it home, the section I would have needed to use only went a littl
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