The companies you mention don't use pens. They use either decals or have the stuff screen printed directly on the rod blanks.
Forum: rodboard

The Fuji Titanium guides aren't really shiny as in a chrome look. They are slightly matte finish. Silver but not chrome shiny.
Forum: rodboard

Urethanes like Gorilla Glue are great for use on exotic woods. I think they'll take more heat than most epoxies will without coming undone.
Forum: rodboard

Dave you're 100% wrong. Thousands and thousands of people are using the simple spiral system and they love it and have no problems with it and not a one of them has any vested interest in it. If you do a search here gong back two years you can see dozens and dozens right here on this very site that use it and aren't having the problems you say you're having with it. I use it every week on standup
Forum: rodboard

It's funny how nobody mentions that on rods with the guides on top and a high frame reel, the butt guide won't load until you have the rod under nearly full pressure. It's so bad on some offshore and trolling reels the guides have to have an additional roller mounted on top of the frame. Guess some people aren't applying these things equally. On the SimpleSpiral, if you have some mental block
Forum: rodboard

Ray you do not want to make light of a rod building show with 80 booths devoted to rod building. You have to keep in mind that down through the years most rod building shows didn't have any booths and even today most only have a half dozen to a dozen. So any rod building event that call pull in enough manufacturers, dealers, vendors, rod builders, etcetera to be able to fill 80 booths is one @#$%
Forum: rodboard

This is the silliest and maybe the stupiest thing I've ever read. Anyone who is upset because you are paying your people is only worried because they don't pay theirs. They don't want the loyal serfs getting any ideas from you! The fact that you don't have to pay your people, but you pay them anyway, says a lot about you and how you operate. You will never come to harm by showing to people that y
Forum: rodboard

I did not attend any of the events when they were held with the fly fishing people. My first time was this past year and I was very impressed. I had read a lot about it but even then it turned out to be much more than I was really expecting. I'll have two or three more builders with me when I come up this year.
Forum: rodboard

I doubt he's going to get many people from this site to buy custom rods from him. I'd think most of us here build our own rods. What he needs to do is explain the title a bit more and just say that he is a "Gudebrod National Rod Building Champion." I think that would take care of everything.
Forum: rodboard

I have not used the forecast components but did take a good look at them at the show in NC this past winter and have viewed them on the rods of other rod builders that I know. Same for Pacific Bay and American Tackle guides and seats. They all seem to be improving year by year, but in some twenty plus years of building rods for the most demanding applications I can honestly say that I have never,
Forum: rodboard

Have firm dates been set for next years Rod Expo?
Forum: rodboard

Tom's giving good advice. Looking back over the years there have been fishermen I wish I'd never built a rod for. Don't be in too much of a hurry or too blind to feel you have to make the sale at any cost. In some cases making a sale to some people will only come back to haunt you later on. Greed says to make every sale. Wisdom says to carefully consider what you're about to do.
Forum: rodboard

What is Fluro grade cork? Can you direct me to the photo or definition of what that stands for? Of course you can't. It never existed. How clear is Fluro or Flor supposed to be? 90%? 80%? Where can you find the standard showing what constitutes Flor grade cork? All these corks grades are just a sham. They mean nothing. They are what the person selling the cork says they are. One of the bes
Forum: rodboard

And maybe you just got a bad one. They probably sell hundreds and hundreds of these and there's always a chance that a bad one got out. Just be careful and wear eye protection. Any of these tools can go bad or break so just be prepared.
Forum: rodboard

Anybody can pull up some math or physics and spout this kind of stuff, but I'll refer you all to something a very wise man once said- "when you can explain it to your grandmother in such a way that she can make sense of it, then you really understand it." I doubt you guys and those at wbi or whatever have any real understanding of what they're spouting. No offense Emory- I know you h
Forum: rodboard

Job obligations the past three years have kept me away from the big Rod Building Show in NC. This year I made it and just wanted to say that it was great. Even more than I had expected after seeing the photos and reading the posts. I was expecting a lot and even so I was still surprised by how large and how good it was. I also won some Rod Bond. First thing I've ever won in my life. For me it was
Forum: rodboard

Dave you'd better damn well believe the simple spiral wrap is different from all the others. I've been around a pretty good while and have tried all the popular spiral wrap methods. The old 0-60-120-180 in both elongated and compressed spacing and even the offset butt guide variation. I've tried the 90 degree butt type and the single 90 degree transition method. I went nuts over the O'Quinn metho
Forum: rodboard

A few days back there was a post here about the RBI group. I can't find it now on a search. Did the guy say their website was up yet? If so, can someone tell me what the web address is?
Forum: rodboard

Bill has a good point and you see it all the time. Fishermen struggle trying to reel in fish on conventional gear and you see the rod twist and rock with every crank on the handle. Bass fishermen lift bass into their boats which would be hard on any rod but it really hard on conventional wrapped rods when that much load causes the rod tip to twist around. C. Royce, Compared, one way IS
Forum: rodboard

The Redington's did not prove any tougher than anything else. The stuff was supposed to make them more resistant to impact on the outside of the blank. Plenty of them broke.
Forum: rodboard

Look, all this stuff about what happens if a fish gets in close and swims off to one side. So what? When you fight a fish you just move the rod and point it in the direction of the fish. Your feet aren't nailed to the deck and even if they were you can still turn at the hip. We're talking about moving a foot. Then the fish is once again off the end of the rod tip. It's called fighting a fish. You
Forum: rodboard

Nearly all the older boat and pier rods with wood handles were pipe seat types with a ferrule that disjointed just ahead of the seat's forward hood. It may be hard to see and it may be corroded. If the rod also has a wood butt, it's almost certain to be a rod that disjoints in front of the reel seat. Heat the seat and get the wood butt out of the seat. Then lock the seat in a vise and slip a
Forum: rodboard

I have to get in on this. I’d like to hear of some real disadvantages to a good spiral wrapped rod. Anyone????? Please don’t tell me that they won’t cast as far because they will and do. Please don’t tell me that they twist, because they don’t. Please don’t tell me that they’re less sensitive because they’re just as sensitive as anything else. I have built hundreds of spiral wr
Forum: rodboard

All the stuff about finding and using the spine of a rod blank is one huge crock! It was cooked up by somebody as a way to make fishermen think that by buying a spined custom rod, they were getting a better rod than they could get from a factory. Other rod builders and other book authors unwittingly bought into it and the myth took hold. But nobody ever bothered to explain why the millions of rod
Forum: rodboard

Don't go too long on the butt grip or you wind up with a pretty short working end out there in front of the reel seat.
Forum: rodboard

What part of it is frustrating? Art is using this site so he's logged in fine. Past problems seem to be his refusal to register properly and-or not using the correct password due to his auto form fill or whatever thing putting in old defunct passwords. I agree, it's not worthy of this thread. Why did Art start it? I doubt it was because of registration problems. Read between the lines. He has a p
Forum: rodboard

Very few high end lathes get sold. Not that many rod builders who can or wil afford such a thing. Renzetti is VERY slow to respond but they will respond and you will get everything you paid for. Small company with a lot going on I guess. Aren't they at the rod building show each year? Might be a good time to just drop them a hint in person.
Forum: rodboard

Lurk, post or look. As long as a guys not causing trouble and just trying to read and learn, what's the harm? I probably look more than I post anymore these days. I've said about all I know so now I'm left with just reading!
Forum: rodboard

Probably too strongly worded but this whole string made me a little upset. Haven't been around in a while but I know how this site is run and the care that goes into it.
Forum: rodboard

Put a torch to one end of the mandrel. The heat will travel down it and usually soften the epoxy enough so you can remove it. Too hot and the cork can scorch, but usually that won't happen.
Forum: rodboard