I have used several SCIII blanks. No problem at all with the matt finish. I did find the finish on an SCIV to be too soft. I like the blank but not the finish. With colored blanks I will go with the CTS brand.
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First of all, I am retired and have plenty of time on my hands. Because I work in spurts, it may take me a week to finish a rod or about twelve hours total time. Most of the time is spent in creating and doing a small weave. I have a second hobby of tieing flies so that also takes up some of my time. When I used to sell rods, I usually had three rods going at once. Thinking back, if I made b
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I built mine like Spencer Phipps suggests and am very pleased with my rod. I would not go lower than a size 16 for the stripper. Just my opinion but it has worked for me.
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John, I have used the foam that I buy at Michael's with good results. As long as the foam is placed in between rings of cork, it holds up quite well. The problem that I did have was trying to glue the foam rings together using epoxy. Example: One black ring, one white ring, and one black ring. I then used Pliobond to glue the rings first. After a day or so I placed them together with the co
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For a minute I thought you were working on another sheephead rod. Mind if I post a picture of you and one of your sheepheads? I will point out which one is the sheephead.
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Mel, I don't see anything wrong with your guide wraps. They look good to me. I have a rod that I used the Electric thread on and have not had any problems with it.
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I guess tomorrow I too will go to Wal-Mart. I was tying Borski sliders last night and trying to trim the heads with single edge blades. It doesn't work very well.
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Billy, I had that same problem with the instant glues. I use them in fly tying. Use once and throw away the bottle because it hardended. Now I use Zap-A-Gap. Works great and doesn't harden in the bottle.
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Try a hardware store. I have seen those at Ace Hardware.
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You are right John, Corrosion X is also a great product. By the way, the biggest speckled trout that I have caught to date is an 8 1/4 lb. caught on an ABU Matic 150 reel.
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The Zebco is just like any other reel that you use in saltwater. If you take care and clean it after use and wipe it down with WD40 it should last a long time. I have some Zebcos that are over 20 years old that my kids fished with and are still usable.
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Rob, Somewhere in my pile of rod building stuff I have one of those tools that I bought from Clemens. It is nothing more than a metal tube with an end cap made of plastic. The cap has several holes in it where you put the threads through. I used it a couple of times and gave up on it. The holes were small and it took a lot of time to put each thread through. And the thread still got twisted
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Hello Fellow Texican, On the foot pedal you will notice that there is a hole there. You can put a screw with a nut on each side. You can now adjust the screw and control the speed of the motor. In other words, the screw will act as a stop to the foot pedal at the speed that you want. Well it is not a Renzeti, but I have used a Flex Coat wrapper for almost 30 years. A couple of years ago I h
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I once met a Ken Wiebe that is in the rod handle business. He is from California. Very nice friendly fellow that used to make the handles on GLoomis rods back in the 80's. I don't know if it is the same fellow.
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Hey Billy, After looking at your beautiful work, I had to go have a bottle of Guiness Extra Stout.
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Hola Nico, Bienvenido a Rodbulding.org. Here you will find all of the help that you will need. Since I don't do that type of fishing, I am not an expert on trolling rods And I don't like to comment on things that I know very little about. However, there are many on this board that will be able to help you. Ciao, amigo
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Rob, I just posted a picture of a lauburu which is one of the oldest folkloric symbols used in Europe by the Basque people. This symbol was the original code of arms and was used as early as 200 years BC in the Basque struggle against the Romans. Hitler copied the symbol in the linear form as a symbol of strength. This is a simple weave that will eventually go on a surf rod. I hope it will g
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Mick, It is a Texas saying. Usually it is "I am so mad I could eat chili" but I don't care that much for chili. Billy, At a casting clinic put on by a fly fishing tackle company a rep hands me a 7 wt. rod to try out. It casts very well. Then he tells me it was because it was overlined with an 8 wt. line. Why not just call the rod an 8 wt. and be done with it. Some poor slob lik
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I have built two in the past based on an article I read in a local magazine. I will never build another one. I used to sell rods and I made these two rods for a couple of fellows that insisted on having them. I built them just like I would any 9 foot spinning rod. They both said that the rods were hard to cast... too whippy. This was before graphite and they were built on Fenwick S glass 6 w
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Wayne, I have building rods for almost 30 years. This same thing happend to me early on. I then started using Flex Coat CP on all of my butt wraps before I do any cutting of the threads. I apply the CP almost to the end and after it dries, I trim the ends (not covered by CP) at an angle. I then wrap the end of the wrap back towards the main body of the wrap. In other words, I am wrapping up
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Bill, The 6 wt. line was a $60 big name brand line WF6.
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Good idea Tom. I have a pending doctor's appointment at the hospital where I used to work. I will take the line into pathology and weigh it. The pathologists will probably think that I am ready for the home but it is worth a try. What gets my goat is that a cheap line performs very well and most guys and magazine articles tell me that I need an expensive line. Maybe I should do what Andy Dea
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Sometimes I get so angry that I could eat steak. I recently built a fly rod using an Allstar IM6 5 wt. blank. The ERN is 5.65 and the AA is 70. Not having a 5 wt. line on hand, I tried a s 6 wt. With an ERN of 5.65 I should be able to make a decent cast. I took the rod to do some bream fishing and it performed terribly with one of those tope of the line lines. I had my nephew try it and he
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For bass fishing I would go with a St. Croix blank of SCIII or above. I have an SCIII 6'9" with an extra fast tip that I really like. The SCV should be a super blank for that type of fishing.
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John, I would not go longer than 10 inches on a 7 foot rod. If I am going to use the rod as a popping rod, live bait under a popping cork, I prefer a 10 inch handle. However, for working lures, I prefer a shorter handle. I am building a rod now for use with soft plastics and the handle is 8 1/2 inches long. It is not a split handle because personally I don't like them on my casting rods. I
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Sam, Do a search under my name in the photo section and you will see the jig that I bought from Custom Tackle Supply. The photo is on the second page of my postings under "Split burl cork rings". I did not post a photo of the second jig that CTS sells. I would recommend buying both.
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Go to a sporting goods store that sells sling shots. They ususally have ball bearings that are used for sling shot ammo.
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Thanks Tom. So far everything looks ok. The checkering is on a CTS blank that I got from Andy, light power and fast action. It is a super blank. I will use this rod for quarter ounce spoons and shrimp tails. Andy is spoiling me. The Allstar Titanium 9 wt. blank that he sold me has turned out to be my favorite fly rod.
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I am trying my hand at checkering with cork rings. While gluing the pie shaped pieces together, I accidentally got them misaligned. I didn't notice until the glue had dried. I use Weldbond Adhesive for gluing the rings. I had used my last two dark rings from Andy. I tried pulling the rings apart but that didn't work. So I stuck the foregrip in the microwave for 30 sections and the rings cam
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