It looks like a lot of spiders are showing up as of late. I thought that I'd put one up as well. It's a great pattern and even a thread challenged person such as myself can do them.
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Some old pieces that I had left over, the woods are cocobolo, maple, and mahogany.
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The grip is made of the poly foam inserts that Bob at Custom Tackle sells for shimming reel seats. I covered the poly with a couple of coats of CA (super glue) I need to test further to see how it holds up.
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I received some dyed black ash burl from Steve at Reelseatblanks.com. The picture doesn't do the grips justice, the grain was so nice that I didn't have the heart to segment it. The reel seat is segmented to imitate a brick wall.
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I made an acrylic bushing and winding checks all in one for the reel seat on one of Swamplands seats. I used a pen blank from Woodcraft for the bushing/winding check.
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I finally listened to my wife and made a bait caster for her instead of a spinning rod. The cork is a simple use of a couple of different cork burls. The yellow trim was a piece of plastic that I had laying around the house. The rose pattern is from Billy's book and I played with the spacing a little to try and fill out the rose a bit. My wife likes to use a spin-cast type of reel for pan fish. I
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The grip and EVA came from Swampland tackle. I swapped out the silver retainer for a gold one, and added a couple of trim rings from Mudhole to add a little bling. I like the look and feel of the grip set up and micro'd the rod. Only another month and I can field test it.
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The grip is made out of a Yoga Cork execise block purchased at the local Target. The wrap is a spider wrap from Billy's book. I'm having a hard time taking pictures of the wrap it self.
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The blank is a Batson IP840 ultra lite and I made the grip a little smaller to stay light. The reel seat is a 16mm with an acrylic pen blank, the winding checks are also made from the same material. The wood is Walnut and Maple veneer. I'm not 100% sold on the colors used for the spider wrap, but it's growing on me.
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I used some exotic yoga cork to make this grip (lol). The cork is made by cutting a Yoga exercise block into strips and then gluing it back together with dyed black veneer. The reel seat is a acrylic pen blank and a 16mm skeleton seat. The blank is a St. Croix 3S60MLF built as a jigging stick.
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A spider wrap with a winding check that I turned on the lathe. It's a pen blank from woodcraft that I turned to fit over the wrap to cover the tie offs.
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A simple pattern that looks like a turbine or S's. I'm not able to make it to High Point this year, so I'm submitting a Nerb's inspired entry. The wood is Bird's Eye Maple and the reel seat is a spalted cherry from Reel Seat Blank.com.
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A grip made with dyed and stabilized Black Ash Burl. The wood came from Reelseatblanks.com , very nice wood to work with. Thanks Steve for the great color combination.
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I thought I'd try one of Billy's Chinese Star's. I like the pattern, not so fond of the orange that I used (lol).
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I was tying something new with thicker aluminum (1/16") and found out that my wood lathe won't handle this thick aluminum. The alum turned at a very different rate than wood and left some awful glue lines. This is attempt number one, it usually takes 3 tries to get something new to work. I made a jig 1/2 way through to turn the harder material with my router, but the damage was done befo
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A better look at the cleats used to hold the blank as it's cut. The cleats are screwed on to the wooden base to set the angle needed to make the elliptical pattern or to cut at over 45 degree angles.
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This is the sled I use to make cuts on blanks at over 45 degrees. The jig works well for making ellipticals and petals.
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The esiest way to glue up the chevron is to glue it with two halves and a straight surface to help with the alignment.
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The top half of the chevron.
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This is a photo of the chevron glued together waiting to be turned. You can see the finished grip here
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The herringbone is formed by over lapping each piece, sanding and gluing another on top of the other.
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I'm playing with some new software and thought I'd post a picture of the start of a herringbone chevron. This is the start of the blank.
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A Christmas present with a plain burl cork grip. The cherry burl is a stabilized piece from Reelseatblanks.com and has some great figure. The finish on the seat is CA over the stabilized insert.
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Simple diamonds made of green. I used Al's color wheel and came up with the red trim. I wasn't sure about it at first, but it really is growing on me. The color gods came through thanks to the color wheel.
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The grip is made with Padauk and Big Leaf Maple burl. Both the woods are stabilized and from Reelseatblanks.com. The blank and reel seat are American Tackle pieces.
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I started with a diamond for the base and wanted to wrap a chevron on the top portion only. I didn't like the way it was headed so I wrapped a chevron around the bottom, liked the look and left it alone.
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Smaller stipper guides for spinning rods. Left to right VS30, VS25, BMLG12 and BMLG10. I have been experimenting with the smaller (tall) guides in spinning rods for the stripper guide, has any one else done this and what have your results been.
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No segmenting on this one just a plain split grip on a St Croix 3S70ULF ultra lite. The grip is cross cut zebra wood and a pen blank for the reel seat.
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I have finished another grip from this bunch of blanks , this is from the upper right hand blank. The cork is bulletin board cork with aluminum, imitation ivory and walnut for trim. The finish is Helmsman Spar Urethane.
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I finally got a chance to finish this build. It started of as a St Croix Build Your Own Blank 6'8" Med Ex-Fast blank that was painted a grey color at the factory. The grip is acrylic with corian and aluminum trim. The reel seat is a acrylic pen blank that I made in a half elliptical with aluminum. The fore and aft wrap were done at the same time wrapping over the mid grip shaving some ti
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