Jake, The old rod varnish as distinguished from the new water based rod varnish was an easy to apply thread covering. When sufficient coats were applied, the finish had a semi-gloss surface, was water proof, and protected the thread for a number of years. The main drawback was that it could be rather easily damaged when knocked about and needed to be replaced periodically since as the varnish
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Ted, I assume you are building a 7 wt. or 8 wt. rod probably 9 feet or perhaps 8.5 feet. Just buy a blank six inches longer. Now glue about 8 to 10 cork rings at the end of the blank and sand them as you would a grip. Now mount your reel seat and grip in front of the mini grip (fighting butt). This will give you a four to five inch fighting butt. To close off the end of the fighting butt
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Good Mornng Sanford, Why do you want to coat your entire rod? If it is an old rod that you are renovating and has many blemishes and gouges, you might want to do that, but on a new blank all coating the rod blank does is add excess weight--particularly to the tip section, where it will slow the action of your rod. Mike Blomme
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If you check the Batson Enterprises catalog and look for RX7+ and RX8+, you will see that the specs including the color of the blanks Mudhole is selling is identical to the Batson blanks. They don't quite meet the specs for the St. Croix blanks. This doesn't mean they are Batson blanks, but the specs provide good data to support that premise. Mike Blomme
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Good evening all, Is there any thread companies that will make a custom color for you. If Gudebrod is going to reduce their offerings, I am afraid the classic two-tone twist thread which I use extensively could be on the list. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Mike Blomme
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In 1960 when I was discharged from the United States Navy, I was living in Santa Monica in southern California. There were three tackle stores in the Los Angeles basin at that time that sold rodbuilding materials retail. If you wanted anything else, you had to order from a catalog. At that time we had Herter's in South Dakota and E.J. Hille in Pennsylvania. Sometime later Dale Clemns came ou
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Martin, I too use the A8L2 series, but use the skeleton versions ad turn my own wood inserts and haven't had any trouble. However, Tom's right about the thermal expansion/contraction--there's nothing you can do about that. If you want a aluminum reel seat, you might look at the Pac Bay Channel lock fly reel seats. They are likely to be less spendy than a REC or an Alps. Batson also makes a s
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Hi Brian, I use either VPD aluminum or nickel silver winding checks. I always buy multiple sizes which I have determined from the given butt diameter of the blank. Typically on fly rods, Iind that ordring winding checks one or two sizes smaller than the butt diameter and then ordering a size larger and smaller will do the trick. Over time I accumulate a number of winding checks that eventuall
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Michael, Canyon Creek makes a series of Cordura covered PVC rod cases. The ones I use have cloth partitions in them which eliminates the cloth rod sock. you'll have to check on the sizes they make. I'm sure one of our sponsors must sell them. Mike Blomme
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Thanks to Mike, Bob, Terry, and Raymond for their suggestios--excellent suggestions all. Mike Blomme
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With forty years experience building rods and having read many many posts regarding feather inlays, I decided to try one for a customer. I am buiding a fly rod with the customer's chosen colors of blue wraps with orange/black classic twist for trim. I decided to use Golden Pheasant tippets for a feather inlay since they are orange with black stripes. My first attempt was a disaster. I pl
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Brent, If the varnish on one of the guides has degenerated to the point that the thread was coming loose, it is likely that the rest of the varnish has also decayed. You might use a moistened cloth and wipe each guide with the cloth. If you see fine lines appear where the water has seeped into tiny cracks, it is likely that you need to have the rod refurbished. You might want to contact
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Calvin, What Mike Barkley and others have stated is very good advice. I bought a small pen lathe for very little money at a sale price of ~$80.00. Since I do mostly fly rod grips, I thought it would be okay. First, it was hardly adequate for my needs and second it was a piece of junk. The tail stock had to be unscrewed from underneath the bed every time you wanted to move it and you could n
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Dave, Isopropyl alcohol(C3H7OH) and denatured alcohol are not the same. Denatured alcohol is mostly ethanol(C2H5OH) (found in beer, moonshine, whiskeys, and wine). It is denatured by adding methanol(CH3OH) (very toxic) and/or other compounds that are also toxic. Under no circumstances should denatured alcohol be consumed--you can die from it. The main reason it is made poisonous is to evade t
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Ken, Before the development of graphite blanks, rod blanks were made from wood, bamboo, steel and most commonly fiberglass. Most fiberglass balnks were not coated. The ones I used were Conolon (later Garcia Conolon), Harnell, and SilaFlex. These banks were not coated and acetone and methylethylketone AKA 2-butanone or MEK were commonly used to remove bits of varnish, the most commonly wrappin
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Brant, If you have a lathe or access to one, you can make an insert from the information given by the others above. If you don't have such access, then you might be able to contract with one of the rod builders to do the work for you. Alternatively you could check with Inserts by Les, one of the sponsors listed on the left. Les does very good work and could likely make an insert for you. Goo
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Michael, Do you mean that you are covering the rod blank itself in addition to the wraps with epoxy? I wasn't sure based on your comments. You do not need to cover the rod blank itself. If you are refurbishing an old rod with a blank that has scratches, you might want to recoat the rod blank, but epoxy finishes are not the method I would choose. If you use the search on this forum, you w
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Royce, I haven't tried any of the "home" methods you described, but I wonder haow hard and how scratch resistant the coatings are. In commercial anodization, the form of the aluminum oxide formed is very dense and hard s well as being very corrosion resistant and scratch resistant. I know in plating copper current and voltage must be carefuylly controlled to get a good plating (a
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Tim, I may be wrong about this, but I doubt dyes and pigments will produce any coating on aluminum that will stay for any period of time. The latest issue of Rodmaker has an aricle on powder coating that you might find useful. Anodization is an elecrochemical process that puts an impermeable coating on the surface of the aluminum. If the object you have is already anodized, it is unlik
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Good afternoon, I want to remove a manufacturer's decal from a rod blank which a customer brought me to build a rod for him. It is a graphite rod balnk with what appears to be a semi-gloss clear coat. When I worked with fiberglas, decals were easy to remove with acetone, MEK or a non-polar solvent such as xylene. However, I know that most finishes on graphite blanks are not stable with resp
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Hi Steve, All of the information you received above is valid. Varnish was the finish used on rods for many years until epoxy and urethane finishes were developed. Varnish forms a rather hard and flexible surface coating. Like all finishes it will darken the thread color and make it translucent. Varnish has a low viscosity and easily applied with a brush. You would probably use three or may
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Brendan, You do need to put CP in the tunnels. I would use two or maybe three coats of CP and fill the tunnels on each coat. When you apply your finish, I would also put finish in the tunnels (if there is any room in the tunnels) as well. The better you seal the thread the less chance that the finish will penetrate the thread. As others have mentioned, you also must pack the threads as ti
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Scott, If this is a typical surf rod, the guides are probably low bridge guides that keeps the line close to the blank. These need to be replaced by the V shaped guides. Fuji Alconites are one example and if you go to the Pac Bay website or the Batson Enterprises (Rianshadow/Forecast) web site from the sponsors list on the left, you can see an illustration of these style guides. You also nee
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Hello folks, This is certainly an interesting thread. When I first discovered this rod forum about two and half years ago, I was pleased that people refrained from correcting the writing of others. I felt people were kind and were also interested in helping each other become better rod builders. I till think this is true. I am certainly aware of the wide variance of writing styles, use of
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Hi Lou, If this rod is that tip heavy and you are planning a full rebuild, I would suggest using a wood grip to increase butt weight. I would also look at the type of guides to see if lighter guides--particularly on the tip would help. Normally with a rod of this power, I would use single foot ceramics. If you already have done this, you might want to look at wire guides. While I am not a
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Hi Dan, It is a long blank, but is relatively light weight. I would probably choose the A8. I used to use the A7s, but I am using an A8 on a 9 ft 7 weight lamiglas rod blank and really like the look with my wood grip. With a longer rod you might want to check to see how tip heavy the rod blank is. If it is tip heavy, I would definitely go with the A8. Good luck. Mike Blomme
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Hi Dale, The others have answered the first question rather well. I just started making wood handles for fly rods. In my area I found a lumber yard that specializes in hardwoods. Most of their business is for high end housing construction. As a result there are lots of small pieces left over that are ideal for rod builders and other wood artisans. Most important the prices for these smaller
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Ike, As with all organic solvents, you must be careful of their use. These flammable solvents, when treated with care and respect, do serve a useful purpose in our rod building activities. I have both an alcohol torch and an alcohol burner on my work space counter. I use denatured alcohol in them. When I finish wrapping a rod and have made sure that the threads are as closely packed as I can
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Craig, I believe that want you are trying to do is called Dappling in Ireland and Scotland. I suspect you could get by using a long Spey rod. Is 20 feet a fixed value or would a 13 or 14 foot rod accomplish the same thing? You might try a search on this forum for dappling or Spey and see what has been discussed. Good luck, Mike Blomme
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Hi Tim, Jay is right. After briging the thread around the back of the guide the first time, you make the first circle around the guide. At this point the thread is on the side of the rod away from you. Now rotate the rod and bring the thread around and again circle the guide a second time. Repeat this once more and then make three more wraps around the back of the guide (some people refer to
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