Loo, I have built hundreds of boat rods and none has come back to me with a gimbal problem. I use mainly 1/2" tape. The butt length fit for most standard 22mm gimbal is about 1.5". I will build 2 strips of 1/2" tape making sure I have a 1/4" space between the tapes and also some space before and after the tapes. I also cut grooves on the internal wall of gimbals. Whether yo
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Loo, Most DIY shops sell this tape here but most of them are 2" to 3" in width. Cheers, Anthony Lee
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Both TMs are so simple to use that I hardly have any bad coat. Over here in Singapore lite dries in 6 hrs and regular in 4 at normal room temperature all year round. 2 coats of either will be just superb. Prefer regular as the top coat. Anthony Lee
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Over here in Singapore, our room temperature is around 30 degrees celcius. Threadmaster regular is completely tack free in 4 hrs and TM Lite in 6 hrs. Both are super but I still prefer the regular. Anthony Lee
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Steve, Recently, I have built a few simple spirals using Fuji's titanium guides. My stripper is usually a T-LNSG 10 and all running guides are T-LSG 6s with T-FST 6 tip. I have been using the Fuji T-LSG guides for almost a decade and have no experience of their inferior quality. For most of my salt water light jigger, 30 lbs and below, all my simple spiral running guides are normally T-LSG 7
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Steve, Over here we use strictly Fuji titanium guides for light bass rods. Would like to try your suggestion but we do have some tip problem. I don't see any 3.5mm tip with tube size large enough for even for the Gloomis 782IMX. Do you guys also use 3.5mm tip or larger then? Anthony Lee
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Laying your guides on the effective spine is equivalent to laying your guides on the weakest part of the blank. Why would you do that? Anthony Lee
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For light colors to come out true, the best is to have white background. Otherwise, I will use NCP thread and at least 2 coats of CP. From your photo, you may want to ask yourself why you used a dark blue underlay, and then cover it with a light yellow. It doesn't make any color sense at all. If you want yellow guide wrap and blue trim, then you should just do exactly that and make sure you use a
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Michael, Yes, you should do more practice. Actually, epoxy work is the easiest. Once you understand its behavior, you will overcome all your problems. 1. Mix your epoxy for 2- 3 mins. 2. As Tom said, load your brush and quickly apply epoxy as instructed. 3. Use long side to side strokes to even out the epoxy. Make sure your brush is loaded when doing this. 4. Put the rod in the dryer mo
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Michael, Your problem is simple. You mentioned more than once that you " should apply a thin coat" first. What do you mean by "a thin coat"? If you use Threadmaster, you have either "regular" or "lite". If you try and limit the amount of epoxy on the rod surface, you will restrict its movement as you may not have enough mass for it to move around. The re
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Hi guys, Heard that Sage has introduced some shore casting blanks. I am interested to import the SAGE CT 386 FB, Need to know which sponsor here carry this blank. Thanks, Anthony Lee
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Billy, I will try your suggestion next time. If the pattern requires 3 steps, I call that one cycle. Is this your interpretation also. Thanks. Anthony Lee
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I prefer to pack the pattern at least every 2 cycle to ensure constant size. This will help me to maintain almost equal gaps and will surely help in my closing. Anthony Lee
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Steve, Have been following your posts here with interest. Suggest you change the reel to a Stella 1000, replace the YSG 25 to 20 and switch your line to 4 lb braid and see what happens. For that particular blank, I will be interested to try the following guide choices: T-YSG 20, 10, T-LSG 7, and 4 X 3.5 with tip Tip T-FST 4.5. Will be pairing this set of guides with a CTS Elite To
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Curtis, You are done. Make sure you apply enough glue on both the blank and the internal wall of the cork grip before you install. When you push the grip into position, make sure you have glue seeping out which will indicate that you have enough glue in the channel.
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My experience is to simply build your rod and go out and fish cause the fish will not know the difference.
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Mark, I have built on the Fives, Sevens, Nines and Elevens and they are all awesome, very light and sensitive. My customers have used them for light bottoms, live baiting for Sails and also light jigging. For heavier application , go for the Matagi Fixer series.
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You guys are funny. Does this happen only at this time of the year? Don't stop anyway.
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Mark, I totally agree with you on Billy's book. With it, I can now be right the first time. This help me saves tremendous amount of time which is critical to my well being as a full time builder. The insight of how each pattern is laid down with accurate spacing also help me to see things I could not see before. Yes, you are dead on when you said, " Your book has taken over where CRTA finish
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Billy, The rose and the rose bouquet are two most captivating patterns to wrap. Your L spacing on page 81 is very clear and concise. Since I have done both on about the same size blanks, I still feel that the single rose pattern is more difficult than the rose bouquet. So, if Scott chooses the single rose, wrap single and I suggest 7 passes since his blank is about 12mm. The bouquet is actuall
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Hi Scott, My most recent rose wrap was actually the rose bouquet on a single wrap. I did it on an 11mm diameter rod. For yours you should estimate about 12mm and your circumference will be about 38mm. Based on BV's book, use the L spacing on page 81. I did 6 passes. Hope this helps.
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Italo, you bring joy to many with your wonderful rods. May your Christmas be blessed with more wonderful work of yours.
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Bill, Santa can come in many different forms during Christmas, and Santa always knows those who deserve such gifts. Merry Christmas to you.
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Phil, All my wraps are with Gudebrod, NCP or metalic A. The only time I use regular nylon is when I need to bleed as in a tartan wrap. I have yet to try any other threads, but I have never experienced what you described, at least for the last 5 years. When you use a mixture of different brand of threads, I believe you will get different thread elasticity and therefore, tensioning may become
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Ed, Spacing for diamond and chevron open wraps is not important but it's critical for any closed wrap. If you have not read or invested in Billy V's book, do so immediately. Secondly, the tension in thread laying, single or multiple, can only come with experience. All of us have to come through that curve through years of practice and the more wraps you do, the better will be the next one. The
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Russ, peacocks are S. American bass and they are specially bred in the Singapore reservoirs for game fishing. As predators, they grap anything that moves.
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Phil, I thought you are still somewhere in Pulau Langkawi. Did you manage to do some good fishing? The days you were supposed to be with us, Amos caught many beautiful snakeheads, featherbacks, Arawonas, and many good size peacocks. Hope we can do some fishing togehter one day. Anthony Lee
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RBI has a very good article on how to maintain a fishing rod in good condition. Maybe, as an extension to this, RBI can include the correct fishing technigue of fighting and landing a fish ." High sticking " is a natural phenomenom and it takes a lot of enducation to correct this. As a rod builder, my key responsibulity is to ensure that the new owner of my custom rod is fully aware of
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Loo, The circumstances in which the rod broke had to be reviewed in detail especially when it involved a 50-80 lb rated rod. It had to take some effort to break such a rod. Therefore, you need to describe in detail how the rod broke and maybe, the gurus here can give you some explanation of why it broke. But, even without any detial, I am quite sure that it had to be the fault of the fisherman
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Just received TM Lite in Singapore. After my second rod with it, noticed that it takes longer, almost 7 to 8 hours, to dry to touch. Also, the gel is very diluted as compared to the hardener. Will the difference in viscosity between the 2 parts change the proportion of each? Our room temperature here is constant at around 25 degree celcius. Hope those with experience with TM Lite can help. Ma
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