They will be spinning, Wes: they will be paired with Penn Spinfisher V 6500 live liner reels. They will be for Jersey surf bait fishing, where 5-6 oz. is usually the amount of lead you need to fish effectively. As it turns out, these blanks went on closeout today: woo-hoo for me. I just ordered two -- these kids are gonna be thrilled to get these rods. Thanks for the input, fellas.
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Perfect - this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks, fellas!
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Does anyone have any first-hand experience with the Rainshadow SUR1266? I gotta make a couple of kids some rods, and I don't have the time to order one and play around with it. Is the 4-8 rating on it legit? Any comments, positive, negative, or otherwise, would be appreciated. Thanks.
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Thanks, man! I may end up using the 1386. I'll let you know how I make out. Thanks for replying.
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Barry, while you're looking at this: what is the real-world rating of the Rainshadow SUR1266? I am thinking about building a couple of rods with this blank, and I vaguely recall reading here that you are familiar with it. Is it a legit 4-8 blank?
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I don't know if Tom has any left, but the best, most comprehensive treatment of spiral rods, and of the different methods of doing them, that I've ever seen, is in the Rodmaker "Guides" special edition. If you're looking to dive into the deep end of the pool, and you have $30 to spend, it will vault you from Spiral 101 all the way to Dr. Spiral, Ph.D.
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I will take pictures, if I remember, Roger. Thanks for checking in. But here's the weird thing: the stationary part of the reel seat, the two parts that are epoxied to the blank, have not moved 1 millimeter. I am 100% certain of this. I verified it by measuring, both before and after I did all the epoxying. I think that this is why the issue is the collar/nut: if the tubes underneath it h
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I will take pictures, if I remember, Roger. Thanks for checking in. But here's the weird thing: the stationary part of the reel seat, the two parts that are epoxied to the blank, have not moved 1 millimeter. I am 100% certain of this. I verified it by measuring, both before and after I did all the epoxying. I think that this is why the issue is the collar/nut: if the tubes underneath it h
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The funny thing, Andy, is that I did what you said: I used the actual reel to position the seat components. And what's weird is that after the epoxy dried, the positioning of both halves of the reel seat was perfect. It was only after the nut was removed (i.e. unscrewed off the threads entirely) and re-threaded back where it was supposed to go, that the positioning changed. Logically, one
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I just realized that this is the kind of thing that is much, much easier to explain with a picture than in words. I just uploaded a picture to the photo section that has two drawings (no jokes, please!): the one on the top left is what I wanted, and how the rod looked after I finished, and the one on the bottom right shows what happened after I removed and then re-threaded the nuts. I still am sc
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Something weird just happened to me. I’m working on a pair of spinning rods with split rear grips and split reel seats, both of which are a first for me (I’m using Fuji SK2 reel seats, which I've found to be pretty nifty). Anyway, during the handle assembly, everything went great: for once, I took my time, and epoxied all the pieces individually, and didn’t move up the blank until t
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I did everything I was supposed to do: sanded the finish, used an arbor, etc. If this thing does not hold up, it will be because of epoxy failure. But it seems that this is something that I'm not going to have to worry about. Thanks for the replies, fellas.
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I've been playing around with a skeleton/split reel seat for the first time (it's a Fuji SKSS seat, if you're scoring at home), and this has been a neat project for me. I really have enjoyed tinkering around with this stuff, and I really like how light the finished handle assembly is turning out. While playing with the setup last night, though, a question about torque came into my mind. Unlik
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I'll second the MInwax Helmsman urethane. They do, in fact, wear like iron. I use them on just about every surf rod I build.
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Like everyone else, I'm kinda fascinated by the Microwave guides. But seeing as how they're available as a set only, with stock sizes for butt/transition/running guides, I have a logistical question: What reel sizes will the Microwave sets accommodate? Is there a spinning reel that is too small, or too large, to benefit from the Microwave system? On the Mudhole website, it says that The layou
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I haven't bought any of the blanks that are currently on special, but I've had great results with these kind of blowout sales that Mudhole does. The blanks are pretty high quality for 10 or 15 bucks apiece.
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I use American Tackle for as many of my titanium guides as I can. For this kind of rod, Typhoons will be just about perfect. If it were me, I'd forget the K guides, use the Titanium Typhoons, and be done with it. The AmTak guides have worked very well for me, even on surf rods.
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This is very helpful -- thank you, guys, for chiming in.
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I'm trying what is for me a new project: taking the framework of a conventional freshwater bass rod and converting the concept for saltwater, estuarine fishing. I came up with this idea, and was intrigued by it, when I picked up a bass rod (baitcasting) somewhere a few months ago. I don't know anything about freshwater fishing, but I was impressed with how light the thing was, and how good it
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I think if you want to see the validity of a fighting butt, you need to come with me on one of my late fall nocturnal striper fishing trips. Fishing from shore with a 10-weight outfit, in the dark, bundled up in a bunch of warm-weather gear, when a striper gets into the current and starts pulling drag, and you pull the fly rod butt to your side, you'll see why there's a fighting butt there. I
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I think Bob is on the money. I built a similar rod right after the MXH blanks, and of all the ones I tested at the 2010 Rod Expo, the CB843 blend was the one I liked most. I liked even more than the all-graphite models -- it just felt great in my hand. And it turned out to be a neat little back bay rod. The water that this rod was built to fish is shallower (20-25 feet max) than you're lookin
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The last spiral I built, which was a heavy-ish 9 foot surf plugging stick, I found the same thing as Roger. I had started with the butt guide on the 0 axis, because I liked the way it looked, but I found that by offsetting it very slightly (I didn't measure, but it was probably about 5 degrees) in the same direction the spiral was going, I got much better line lay than I did with the butt guide o
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What I do is take some old fishing line (preferably heavy braid), and tie a knot to the tip top. Run a few feet of line from this, and then to the other end, tie a clip of some kind, something that will be strong enough to hold a fair amount of weight (I usually use big coastlock snaps). The line should be short enough so that the clip hangs a few feet off the ground. Then, I start putting si
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Wayne, you're probably using a cord that's too thick for your rod. I've found that the thinner the cord, the smoother the surface feels to one's hands. If you're using something that's about as thick as a clothesline, then you're using something that's too thick. I use nylon mason line that's only about 1/16-inch thick; it takes more wraps to build up a cord grip with this stuff, but the end
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This oddball stuff fascinates me. Here's a weird idea that just popped into my head: Build two rods: one for casting, one for fish fighting. For casting, use a 12- or 13-foot high-tech surf blank, like the stuff from CTS or Century. Match it with a real that can really cast, like the Daiwa Emblem Pro or the Penn Squall if you prefer convench. Line capacity is not hugely important, because thi
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I love the current AmTak guide lineup: they have a frame style for everything I do, from the lightest back-bay flounder rods to the heaviest offshore stuff. And they're all available in titanium. I use these guides every chance I can - they're that good.
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Sorry for the delay in replying, guys - I've been away from the computer for a few days. Thanks for posting - this is helpful information. We're going to see how this works out -- I'm going to do some experimenting with a couple of low-profile baitcast reels (Penn Sargus) that I got on closeout. I'm going to put them on a couple of back-bay rods, and see how they work. It should be a fun experime
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This is a new subject to me, but one that has piqued my interest: there is evidently more and more use of low-profile baitcasters like the Abu Garcia Revo, even for saltwater applications. Whereas 15-years ago a backbay guy might have sneered at these things as "smallmouth reels," now there are evidently models out there that will easily tame fish way bigger than you would reels in this
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The thread about gold cermets being discontinued got me thinking. The one thing I liked about cermet as a material was its resistance to cracking. This was evidently because of the metallic, or semi-metallic, nature of these guides: ceramics mixed with metal (CER for ceramic + MET for metallic, get it?) made them much less prone to cracking than ceramic is by itself. I never used cermet guide
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I don't mean to sound like Billy -- well, maybe a little -- but who cares who owns what, or what the relationships are? As an end consumer, all I really care about is the product (price, quality, etc.), and the corporate structure of AmTak, or anybody else, really isn't any of my business. Do you really think that if you go to Walmart to buy a TV, and ask about their relationship with the manufac
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