I have a few rods under my belt (surf spinning and fly), but I'm about to tackle my first conventional custom rod. I've picked out the blank and components, and am eagerly looking forward to getting started. While I'm reasonably confident that I have the skills to construct a good boat rod, all of my prior rods have had the guides on the bottom of the blank, and for my first casting rod I'm a
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Michael Shea: When dunking bait in the New Jersey surf, I use only Alvey reels -- I have five of them -- and, belive it or not, I've found that the shorter rods have served me well, even with the Alveys. My "go-to" bait rig in the Jersey Surf is a custom, ten-foot, 3-8 oz. rod paired with a 650BCXL. I caught a 30-something striper in the surf with this rig last month (proudly release
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Fran, I think that you will enjoy the 9-footer immensely. Longer rods do have a place, but I think -- and this was sort of the thinking behind my original post -- most surfcasters, in most circumstances, would be better served by a shorter rod than a longer rod, and 9-feet is a good length, in my opinion. For what it's worth, the magazine and the board have sold me on twine grips for surf rod
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Thanks, Tom. I do have the RMM surf rod issue, and meant to include that in the post and forgot to. And you confirmed a point that I was trying to make, but did not clearly state: yes, it is true that a world-class caster can cast farther with a 12-foot rod than a 10-foot rod. But let's face it: most of us aren't world-class casters (I know I'm not), and I think that the vast majority of surf
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I learned early on (as, I'm sure, most people here did too) that one of the best things (maybe the best thing) about getting into custom rod building is the opportunity to make a rod that will be exactly what you want it to be. You can choose the length, the weight, the action, even the color -- you can create the perfect tool for the situation you face. I'm still new at this (about 6 or 7 ro
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I'm a newbie to fly rod building - I'm on my third - but for whatever my 2 cents is worth (my first two were both 10-weights), I found during test casting that a size 20, high-framed (SVSG style) stripping guide worked best for me. During my test casting, a size 25 guide was too big, and a size 16 too small. And since I completed the rods, they've been working great -- I'm happy with the way the
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Good luck, Bill. He may still want a 15-footer, and if he does, God bless him -- it's a free country, after all. And even though I don't sell my custom rods - I just build them for myself -- I nevertheless think that one of the great benefits of getting a rod from a good custom rod builder is that he may be able to show you something that you otherwise might have missed. This guy, for example, ca
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Bill, for what it's worth, I think that any surfcaster who wants a 15-foot blank is either the Incredible Hulk or is severely misguided. Most of my fishing is done in the New Jersey surf, and I know that when I started plying the suds I suffered from the same mentality, that a longer blank equals a longer cast equals better fishing. After getting into building my own custom rods, however, and
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I'm a fairly new hobbyist; I started early last fall and have built six rods, and am working on my seventh. I got into this because I needed a rod for a particular use (an extra-heavy surf bait heaver), and I couldn't find a commerically-built rod that would do what I wanted to do. So I took a deep breath, bought Tom's book, and gave it a shot. And when I was done, after many missteps and mistake
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Luis, I don't have a Slammer 560, but I do have a 460, and I believe there's only an ounce difference in weight, so what I went through this winter might help you. I too was going to be using my Slammer for plugging the surf, and since I prefer rods to be shorter (especially for plugging), I went with an 8-foot, 1-piece St. Croix rated 1/2-2 oz. (I have a few plugs that are heavier than two ou
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This winter and spring, I built two 10-weights to fish for stripers on the Jersey shore. I was a complete newbie to fly rod building when I started, and I used snakes on the first one -- I thought that all fly rods had snakes. When I built the second one, I had the experience of building the first rod, plus I had done some research -- most of it on this board -- in the interim. Partly because I s
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If you're going to be building your own rod, I strongly recommend Black Dog Tackle, a board sponsor. Like you, I wanted to get into fly fishing the salt, but was extremely put off by the cost involved -- I wasn't gonna spend $300 for a fly rod. Well, I found Black Dog through this board, ordered a 10-wt blank and components, and I cannot overstate how thrilled I am with the results. People I've s
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Ole, I just built myself a pair of 10-weight saltwater rods, and since I was a total novice to building fly rods, I built one with snake guides and one with ceramics. It's been fun to compare the two. My opinion -- and this is just my opinion, remember -- is that when fishing I vastly prefer the ceramic guide setup. The snake guides work OK, but the ceramics just seem to do a better job while
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I'm currently building a 10-wt for saltwater, and I've been monkeying with guide sizes for a while. So while your rod will be used for a completely different purpose than mine, maybe the messing around I've done will help you out. For starters, Tom K is right: find the smallest size guide that will work for you, and then, moving up the rod from the reel, get to that size as quickly as you can
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I second this recommendation. I was referred to Black Dog through this board, and love Joe's stuff. I would recommend them highly.
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Yes, Bill, I have looked at blanks other than those categorized as surf blanks. The problem -- at least as far as this novice builder can tell -- is that there is a dearth of rods between 8 and 10 1/2 feet or so. This isn't really a problem for plugging rods, as blanks in the 1-3 oz. range are widely available in a large variety of lengths. But for bait rods, especially of the heavier variety, mo
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I have questions about cutting blanks. I've searched the RBO archives, and while I've found a lot of techical, how-to information regarding cutting blanks, I haven't found information about how much of a blank is OK to cut. Let me explain. Last fall I built myself an extra-heavy (6-16 oz.), bait-heaving surf rod. Since the blank that best fit the specs I wanted and my budget was 12'6" lo
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I've run across this situation before too, not because I didn't like the end placement of the reel seat, but because the only blanks I could find were longer than I wanted them to be. Of course, being a newbie, I was too chicken to cut them down to the length I wanted, and left them as is. Since I don't want to hijack this post, I'm going to create a new post. Cheers.
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David, I thought of that analogy when I wrote my post/rant... There is a superb custom golf-club operation near my house (George Izett), and it's actually cheaper to go to Izett and have clubs fitted to your swing than to go to a big-box sporting goods store and buy the hot new thing from one of the big manufactuers. I talked to a guy at Izett a few years ago, and he was not worried at all ab
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As an "amateur" rod builder (I build them only for myself, and for friends and family members, who pay only for the components), I'll put in my two cents... I agree that most fishermen would not appreciate the difference between a decent factory rod and a good custom rod. Or if they did notice a difference, they could not justify the extra expense involved in obtaining a custom. I kn
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Hey Danny, the exact same thing happened to me a few months ago, on a 10-wt saltwater fly rod. The top inch or so broke off, and I did as people here suggested (and as Ralph and Spencer are suggesting here): I removed the broken piece, reconfigured the guides, and pretended it never happened. And you know what? I took it fishing for the first time this past weekend, and it was GREAT. If I hadn't
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A similar thing happened to me not too long ago. I was building a 10-wt fly rod, and through all the testing -- finding the spine, static distribution, test casting, etc. -- the blank held up fine. I finally got the rod completely finished -- it was a beauty, at least to my biased eyes -- and even though it was January, I put a reel on, and even a leader, and trudged out the back door to try it o
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I will add that while I don't use color preserver -- I build only rods for myself and think "unfinished" wraps look fine, I think that those who argue that color preserver weakens the finished wrap have extrapolated a logical point -- that color preserver prevents finish from penetrating the thread -- far beyond its real-world implications. I say use whatever gives you the look you like
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I agree with Scott. I would not hesitate to build a casting blank on a spinning blank, or vice versa. In fact, I would prefer to build a casting rod on a spinning blank that met my needs, instead of a "casting" blank that wasn't exactly what I was looking for.
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I don't build rods for others, but if I did, and I were in your shoes, I'd try to talk him into a 9' blank. I have a pair of 9' 10-wts that I use to fish the surf, and I can't imagine that an extra foot is going to make much difference in performance. I don't think that you're going to cast farther, and I can't think of an advantage in fighting a fish, either. There probably is a difference in ca
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Jason -- it depends on the strength rating of the blank, and how much the lower half bends. When building two-piece rods, I identify the spine on both on the top and bottom, and try to align the two when putting the rod together. I've even wrapped masking tape on each, where they meet, with marks to make it easier to line them up. But if you finished the bottom without checking for spine, I d
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Jason, I may be the only guy on here with a Snyder Glas rod. I didn't build it myself -- I bought it ready-made, to got to go along with an Alvey reel I had. Alvey and Snyder have had a fairly long relationship, and the Snyder was one of the few pre-made rods that's designed to mate to Alvey reels. I bought it before I got into building rods, and though my days of buying pre-made rods (factor
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Jason -- it depends on the strength rating of the blank, and how much the lower half bends. When building two-piece rods, I identify the spine on both on the top and bottom, and try to align the two when putting the rod together. I've even wrapped masking tape on each, where they meet, with marks to make it easier to line them up. But if you finished the bottom without checking for spine, I d
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Thanks, Mike -- that's exactly what I was thinking, but was looking for confirmation from someone else, because (naturally) someone else's opinions are much more valid than yours (sometimes, anyway). I've been very pleased with aluminum oxide guides, and I think I'll stick with them.
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Thanks for the links to previous posts. I did do some searching before I posted the topic -- I wouldn't want to put up a subject that was discussed a month ago --and while I found a whole bunch of technical discussions, I didn't see my question -- "Are they worth it?" -- addressed. I've learned a lot about the technical aspects of guide rings, but I was wondering whether anyone had an o
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