It is a well known fact that many oriental firms, especially the Chinese, are on the lookout for products to copy and profit from. This is happening even now in the clothing, recording, furniture, fashion and yes, even fishing industries. If it's any good and there is a market for it, the Chinese will copy it and put it on the market for sale. Evidently this is now happening with rod building com
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I know the delivery times for Rodmaker can vary by a lot, but I got mine earlier than I've ever gotten it and this afternoon absorbed what to me is the most important article on rod building that I've ever had the pleasure to read. No fancy wraps or pretty wood pieces, just a full out, loaded with information piece on human ergonomics and how they relate to fishing rod handles and grips. Where ha
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You may remember a post I made here a couple months back about a potential customer giving me a real headache over a price on a rod. I took the advice I received here to heart and declined to do business with him. He was mad as all get out and even passed around some bad words towards me at some of the local marinas and fishing clubs. After that I was even more glad that I hadn't done business wi
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I got the same E-Mail towards end of last week. Figured it was a hoax.
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You mean you only put the threaded nut on the barrel and not the sliding ring? That nut WILL cut into the reel foot. Count on it. The end cape is hard to glue in place. I'm betting you can heat it just a little and tap if off the end of the seat.
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I use Permagloss on light line fly rods, about 4 or 5 coats. This gives me a level but thin thread coating. It isn't quite as smooth as epoxy, but I have not seen any dumbells or footballs. A very slight faceted appearance maybe. But that's about it. My .02 from my own experience with it. I think it looks great on the light fly rods.
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Has anyone tried the latest wrap in Rodmaker with metallic thread? I assume that because the effect is create by the angles between the two thread layers and not the thread type itself, that the same effect would be possible with metallics. I plan to try this for myself but just wondered if anyone else had tried it and had any tips or comments on how metallics work with this technique. Thanks.
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Has there been any decision made about adding a tag along general fishing or fly show with the rod builders show next year? Not really a big deal to me as there are plenty of fishing shows around, just wondering in advance. I'll return either way.
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For those of you who might be newcomers or just those who want a refresher, the recent series of articles in Rodmaker Mag on determing the right guide sizes, the right number of guides to use on any rod and where to put them, is the VERY BEST stuff I've ever read in any book or seen in any video about this subject. No offense to Tom, but what he is doing now in this series of articles is way b
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It's probably copyrighted so I don't know if that's legal or not. But surely putting one little decal on a rod wouldn't put you in trouble, would it? Will the companies making the decals not scan and print one for you? Maybe this is a copyright issue as well. Should be easy enough to paint on. It's just line art and only a few strokes. White India ink and fine quill should do it easy enough. I
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Now that Scott Throop has spilled the beans on his 3D "Tiger" Signature wrap, I would like to congratulate him on coming up with such a clever scheme to produce this effect. I couldn't figure out how it was done, but now it's very easy to see how it all works. Thank you, Scott. Very considerate of you to share this with your fellow builders. Also the variation made by Bill Colby show
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I have some Fuji boat seats numbered DPS that have heavy internal ribbing. They must be between ten and fifteen years old. I have reamed some out to give me enough diameter to directly fit the rod blank. Not sure if this is the same thing or not. FWIW, I hate prepped guides. I've never seen one that was well done and I have to go back and reprep them. Sometimes it's harder to redo somebody els
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Straightest axis is hard to beat. I would put it in either the fish fighting plane or the casting plane whichever you feel is more important. Probably won't make a huge difference either way though.
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Following up to a question I posed here last week, I was wondering what are the legal ramifications if any, of refusing to do business with a potential customer? Can I legally refuse to sell a rod to someone who wants it based on the fact that I'd just not rather do business with them? It hasn't come up yet but I was curious about this.
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You have all given me some good food for thought. I will stick to my price and not worry too much over it. None of us likes to lose a sale but after reading your responses and considering all the angles, I can see that there are some sales that you're better off not making.
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How far would you go to make a sale? I have a guy right now who is maybe the most demanding customer I've ever dealt with. Nothing seems to satisfy him. He wants a special color blank that I'll have to produce myself by stripping and repainting the blank that has the action and power he prefers. But when I add up my time and effort, it puts the final rod cost at a price that he doesn't want to pa
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I used to patronize a tackle shop where the owner repaired and built a few rods. I was there one day talking to him and watched him mix some epoxy. He added some sort of solvent to it and then started applying it to the wraps. Just as he finished up, he took out a propane torch and fired it up. I started backing away and asked him if he thought it was wise to put a flame to something that had a f
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I know enough about the subject at hand to know when somebody is just trotting out textbook information without actually knowing if it's pertinent or not. There is a poser in the crowd, probably hard at work digging up some additional non pertinent mumbo jumbo to throw at us here!
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My background isn’t along these lines so I never know when somebody who comes along and uses the big words and equations is tossing @#$%& or actually knows something about what they’re speaking about. Awhile back somebody around here said that when you really know what you’re talking about you can explain it to your grandmother. Well I don’t think many of you guys could explain any of thi
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Part of the success must be due to these two reasons IMO, First you have the best rod building event in the world! That in itself draws a lot of people out. I would think that after they attend one they're going to come back year after year after year. I know I will and you no longer have to mail me anything. I'll do my own searching to find out the dates and times as each February rolls around.
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That's what makes the great big show there in NC so outstanding. No club affiliation, no politics, no gripes, just all out rod building! Didn't mean to hijack the thread but it came to mind after the last post by Tom there.
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Better yet, just use a stiffer brush and you will find that less finish gets on the wrap.
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Ed I really can't say anything about the blanks that hasn't already been said. But on your question about other events and shows I think if you'll look around a bit you'll see that there are quite a few around the country each year. I know that there is something going on up at Lamiglas next month or so that might be good if you're in that area. All the various gatherings will have something t
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I can't add much to what others have already said. The greatest rod building event on earth for sure! No one else has brought it up so I wanted to mention that the small social area set off near the front of the hall was great. It gave some of us a place to sit and chat about rod building in a more up close and personal way. I thought it was nice that even with an event this large and busy yo
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Tried to watch you guys working on Saturday but your booth was always crowded. Did get to look at the rods in the rack there and they were really beautiful.
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Tom this is why you have a show in a major institution like the Showplace and draw over a thousand rod builders while other groups are still in hotel meeting rooms drawing only a few dozen rod builders. You think big. We all should think that way but sometimes we forget to look at the total picture.
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Got in a little earlier than expected yesterday and went over to see if I could get into the show for a sneak peek. They wouldn't let me in! I did look through the big front glass as the set up going on and have to say that I never expected anything like this in a million years. I knew it would be a big show but had no idea it would be like this. I really don't see how I'm going to cover every
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You can't do it with a push-pull motion. You have to get a reamer that fits snug in the bore and twist it in. Then as the bore enlarges you move to a larger reamer, twist that one in and keep going that way. You can bore through the butt end of the pistol grip and ream it the usual way but then you have to go back and plug the end hole with a mix of cork and glue or insert a plastic plug of so
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I know it's a little premature but I'm wondering if the new RBI organization will be staging any sort of yearly event for its members. If so, I would suggest talking to Tom about doing it the same week and at the same location as the big Rod Building Exposition. In my mind this makes a lot of sense. You'd have all the manufacturers and dealers already there so they wouldn't incur the expense of h
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I haven't been on board for all ten years but in the four or five I've been taking the magazine I can say that it was always good and has gotten even better with time. The last two years have seen it come full circle IMO and the quality of the last few is on or above par with any magazine I've seen on any newsstand anywhere. Better than most fishing magazines in fact. It's the only magazine I sub
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