Jay, Another thing that I like to use the belt sander is to use relatively coarse sanding belt - like 150 grit. Then, when I sand the guide feet, I hold the guide foot at 90 degrees to the belt. The result is that the sandpaper puts fine grooves across the face of the guide foot. The nice thing about this, especially with smaller guides with short feet, is that the perpendicular grooves in
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Jay, I use the belt sander all fo the time for all of the guides, The sander is always set up, so is handy. For dressing small guides, I have taken an 8x32 long bolt. This size bolt just fits inside some of the smaller guides. I have then ground the head so it is nearly flat. I then have taken the long bolt, slipped a guide on the bolt, and then taken a piece of rod blank that just fits o
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Ted, You are right to be concerned, but just open the lid on the container under question so that it sits loosely on the tub. Set the timer for about 15-20 seconds and you will be fine. Take care Roger p.s. Many folks buy an inexpensive small micro wave - just for their rod shop, since it is a handy thing to use for quick warm ups of different items.
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Jeff, I have used a lot of bulred cork and have not noticed any glue lines at all with either burled or rubberized cork. The times that I have noticed quite visible glue lines were the times that I used bleached natural cork. For that cork, the glue line was very pronounced. My guess is that, as you suggested, you did not use enough pressure on the cork, and or you simply put too much
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Gabe, As one of the others mentioned, double check all of the guides for loose wraps. If a couple of guides are loose, it might be necessary to rewrap all of the guides. Roger
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Ron, As several others have mentioned - Mix, Mix, and then Mix some more. Many many folks that have just started using a new product measure the product carefully, but don't mix the two part adhesive long enough for a complete mix. I always use the clock and am sure that I mix for at least 120 seconds or 2 minutes. Three minutes is even better. Since mixing by the clock, I have never
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Phillip, Pick up one of these belt sanders. I use 150 grit paper on it to sand down my guide feet. Simple easy, quick and very clean. You will also find a thousand other uses for this sander for rod building as well. I use this sander all of the time with various grades of paper to take care of a myriad of chores around the shop. I use 600 or 800 grit paper on this sander to put a ra
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Ted, If you don't have the adhesive in a metal container, put the adhesive in the microwave for a few seconds. The microwave does a wonderful job to warm the adhesive and eliminate the crystals. Roger
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Johnathan, A simple fix for this is to simply do a double thread wrap on the tip. By doing double thread wrap on the tip, you will have sized the tip up to about a size 4. Simply glue on the size 4 tip and you will be good to go. This is a very simple thing to do for the times that you have a tip that is in between sizes, or simply because you don't happen to have a tip that is small enough
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Lou, If you build yourself a drum dryer, you don't need a chuck, and you only need one motor. If you would like help or plans to build your own drum dryer, drop me a line: hflier@comcast.net Basically this drum dryer uses a square 1 inch aluminum tube to hold the plywood drums to hold the
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Gary, I think that everyone is right. Check out the library - Essentially you have the following actions in a rod. Slow Moderalte Fast Extra fast Each of these words defines as to where the rod begans to bend. i.e. slow begans to bend from the butt, moderate or medium begans to bend in the middle, fast begans to bend at about the 1/3 way from the tip, extra fast begans to bend
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A solid glass ugly stick blank has a very flexible tip, can be bent in a circle and tied up so it is virtually unbreakable. Also, the blank is very very inexpensive. Roger
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Marty, Generally speaking - it is not that important about what "modulus" a particular rod has in its composition. The important thing for a rod blank is very simple - does the rod blank to the job that the fisherperson needs the rod to do. i.e. is the rod the right weight, are the blank walls the right thickness. Today, many blank makers use many different types of materials in the
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Duane, Whenever I remove the factory labeling on pvc pipes that I use now and then to ship rods, I have found that acetone is about the best thing. If I do use this very volatile solvent - I only do it outsie with the wind blowing cross wind. i.e. you want the wind blowing along the cleaning station, so the fumes neither get into your face, or eddy up around you. But it is a very effective
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Kern, As others have pointed out, the yellow hardner will cure just fine. But the yellow in the hardner is an indication of aged finish. Wouldn't you rather use fresh finish on your rods, so that you at least start with a gin clear finish on your rods? I generally make a point to try to limit my finish purchases to be able to use the finish up within a year. Good luck Roger
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Kurt, Although a good question, if you like the St. Croix 7s70mf blank, why don't you simply use that blank, rather than trying to get one that is "close" to the blank? If you are going to be doing a rigging rod, I really think that there are other blanks that are much better suited to the job than the 7sMF. I would suggest that the St. Croix Premier in the medium light blank ac
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Billy, Your post really does make sense, and as usual, has excellent information. But, as is the case with many things, there are certain items that really do a much better job than another item. Your case is well made. If a substance is used that requires special handling, then it is certainly a good idea that the person using the substance be aware of the special handling required of th
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Pat, What do you mean by your statement? As written, it is not understandable. From time to time, I do find that it is a good idea to clean the syringes. Even though not mixed, part a or part b by itself can cum and get clunky in parts of the syringe. When this happens, I pull the plunger out of the syringe and completly clean the syringe, useing an appropriate solvent, a tooth brush and a
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Chris, Just use a double foot stainless guide of an appropriate size. I expect that would hold up just fine. Roger
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Ken, Get a set of syringes which have graduated markings on the sides of the syringes. I seldom use a full set of finish in the syringes. I generally only use a 1/4 or a 1/3 rd load in the syringes. Not an issue at all to insure that the part A is equal to the part B. I always pull in more finish than my final amount, and then push the excess back out so that the finish is on the exact m
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Owen, If you never have the problem in the guide area, but only in the butt wrap section. I would suggest that you get in the habit of just scuffing the butt wrap area with scoth brite, between coats. Normally a light scuff will take care of any contamination. I have to agree with the other posters in that you have some sort of contamination on your rod. Bottom line, try to wash your h
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p.s. Here is a picture of the grizzley lathe that you are writing about. To mount the fractional hp motor, I would do the following: 1. Remove the motor mount from the lathe bed. 2. Obtain a board or piece of aluminum channel that is longer than the current lathe bed. (for example a 1x6 or 1x8 if the width is needed for the motor mount. You may even have to go to a 1X10 depending on
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Mike, Another source for a drill if you want to save money is to go to your neighborhood pawn shop. You can often find very high quality industrial drills like Milwakee, Rigid, Hirth, or other very very good drills for a very reasonable price. If you do go this route, you have to be sure that you are not buying a drill that is on its last legs. But you can often find a very very good drill fo
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Skip, Yes titanium frame guides with a high quality ceramic insert certainly fills a need for certain customers. But be aware that for most clients and rods, there are many many other guides out there that do a wonderful job, wear a very long time, resist corrosion and do a great job as a rod guide. Good luck Roger
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Mike, Well said. I do use Xylene from time to time as needed, but I am very careful with its use. I use a chemical proof mask and I work with open windows with forced ventilation keeping the fumes out of the workshop. You are absolutely correct. Very toxic and a great need to be very careful in its use. This solvent does certainly fill a nich in rod building that can not be matched by
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Janns netcraft on the left sponsor page carries them. Roger
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Garey, One of the advantages of using Xylene as a solvent for any of the epoxy 2-part finishes, is that is the use that Xylene was designed for. If some Xylene happens to mix with the finish, it iwill really not effect the epoxy finish at all. It will just mix with the finish and the finish will cure normally. Another advantage of using this as a finish, is that it evaporates quite quickly so n
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I second Mike's suggestion. This is the method that I use. By scraping, it is very easy to just scrape the area of concern, rather than removing too much finish as may be the case with other methods. Roger
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Jonathan, I would probably only use the size 16, 8 and 6 guides. With an ice rod, you really only need about two sizes. But it is important that the first guide be a relatively large and or tall guide. If you don't have the first guide relatively tall and or large, the line will tend to catch as you reel in the line. You don't cast with an ice fishing rod, so you only need to be able to have e
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Gabe, One of the best things that you can own when building rods is an alchol burner. The reason to buy and use an alchol burner with 99% pure alchol is that 99% pure alchol burns with a colorless flame. If the flame has no color, there is no soot to get on the wraps. 1. Buy an alchol burner 2. Go to your nearby home building store to the paint department. Buy a gallon of 99% pure alcho
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