Bruce, All of the recommended guide charts are a starting point. If you use the recommended chart, the rod will certainly work just fine. But you may find that the use of a different spacing or guide type and or style may work better for you and your client for a given purpose. Roger
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Lorenzo, You may find that you can buy unsanded blanks from various suppliers for a discount rate. These will generally be tubular or hollow blanks. To make a nice looking rod, it is a nice idea to sand out the moulding ridges that are typically on unsanded blanks. Again, if you spin the blank in a lathe when sanding, be sure to use enough rod rests to prevent blank whipping when sanding
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Lorenzo, If you have a hollow blank, the answer is no. The tubular walls are too thin to sand the blank and make an action change. However, if you have a solid graphite or a solid fiberglass blank, you can easily change the action of the blank. If you do elect to sand down a solid blank to change the blank, be sure that you have the full length of the blank well supported during sanding
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Jesster, Any thing is possible. The big question is whether you can remove rod components with out damage. If you start on a project like this, it would not be a bad idea to have replacement components on hand, in case one or more of the components were damaged. Generally speaking, heat is the answer to getting things loose on the rod. This may be in the form of hot water, a heat gun,
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Mark, Tom nailed it. I generally find that if I have a rod with the tip and sensitivity that I like, I will not trim any thing from the tip. I find that when the rod has the tip that I like with the tip action, I will never trim it. Then, if I want the rod shorter or longer, I either cut or add material from or to the butt section of the rod. Roger
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Lorenzeo, When I talk about using heat to soften the epoxy finish, I am not speaking of a hair dryer, I am speaking of a heat gun that is used for industrial purposes softening paint etc. IT would be similar to this one: or: Roger
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David, If you check out many of the surf rod setups, the distance and lure weights are not much different than what these folks do every day on their regular bay fishing trips. Roger
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Basically, most guides take about 1 foot of thread. A butt wrap will take more, depending on how long the wrap on the rod is. Generally a typical rod will take 15-30 feet of thread. For a 100 yard spool or 300 feet, this should give you a minimum of about 10 rods. Take care Roger
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Les nailed it. For all of my rod work, whether it is a mandrel, or a cork clamp, I always keep a thread die handy that will fit the threads of the rod/s in question. It is very common for the threads to get gunked up with glue. I just chuck the rod in a drill, put the die on the rod and then run the die up and down the rod a few times to clean all of the glue from the threaded shaft , rod,
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Phillip, Just for future reference, if you have any question about the final color of a particular thread, do a test wrap. Then, wet it down with alcohol. The wetted thread will pretty much have the look of the thread after it has been coated with epoxy and then allowed to dry. The difference, is that you can get the look of the final color in just a couple of seconds, rather than going to
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Kevin, You can use any thread that you like to build a rod. The finer the diameter of the thread, the finer look will be the thread wraps. Virtually all of the high quality fly rods use A size thread, but if you want to use D thread, it will certainly hold the guides on the blank. Roger
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Since you are speaking of a medium light rod, what lb test line rating are you talking about. Most of the medium light rods, that I build on, have a line rating of 6-10 lbs. If that is the case, most of these blanks have a tip size of 4-5, so the tip should be no problem at all. The St. Croix wild river blanks make excellent crankbait rods. Basically, I think that for an excellent crank
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Lorenzo, Whenever I am rebuilding a rod and am replacing the handle and reel seat, I will first use a pair of common slip joint pliers to chew away the cork. The inner jaws of the pliers are very coarse and will nicely chew away the cork down to the glue. Then, for the reel seat, I will use a dremel tool or similar high speed grinder with an abrasive wheel on it to cut the reel seat lengthwis
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Michael, There are various types of thread tension devices on the market. In checking on the Flex Coat web site, it appears that most of the wrappers use the sewing machine style thread tension device and a standing rod to hold the thread. If you are getting squealing, there can only be two sources. 1. The thread spool hanging up on the thread pin or 2. The thread getting stuck in the
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Joe, The reason to not to give the handle a light sanding, is that every time that you sand the handle, it gets smaller. If you do this a number of time over a number of years, you will end up with a handle that is too small to be comfortable. Roger
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Mike, If you use a dremel, try the following method. Have a board that you don't mind marking up. Lay the blank on the board. Lay both of your forearms on the table and on the board, with one hand holding the dremel. Have the tip marked. Then, with both of your forearms braced on the board, and the blank laying flat on the board,, hold the the blank near the tip wiht one hand.
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Garrett, I wonder if you mean that you have a chuck with a 3/4X16 thread. If so, I would be interested in the chuck. It will fit my head stock just fine. Please drop me an e-mail hflier@comcast.net Roger Your e-mail is hidden.
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Greg, First of all, this is a fishing rod. It is not a life threatning situation, or any thing to lose sleep over. Many many many casting rods have been built with double foot guides from the reel to the tip and they all catch fish just fine. Yes, you have a touch more tip weight on the rod and the action will be a bit slower, but that may not be a bad thing for this particular blank.
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Greg, If you are concerned about ice, and I am when making "outdoor" ice fishing rods, I seldom use guides smaller than size 8. Again, the roeason for the larger size is the ice buildup. It is not a matter of if, but when the ice will build up on the guides when fishing in subfreezing temperatures on the ice. As a result, you need to have guides that are large enough to allow som
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Lorenzo, Situations like this are exactly the reason that I put a couple of large marks on everything to do with epoxy when I first receive the epoxy. i.e. I use a heavy black marker to make a large A on the part A container, and a large B on the part B container. I do the same thing for Syringes, and any other container or glue that is a two part mix. I generally get new containers if I
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Karen, If you are happy with the way that the rod looks, I would simply suggest that you apply your finish and move on. I wouldn't expect that you would have a need for CP. Roger
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Greg, I agree with Mr. Kirkman on this one. If the client is local, there is a complete description of the rod and its components, before the build is started. If the client is remote, all elements of the rod are documented via e-mail, with both the client and myself agreeing on all items before the build starts. -- You didn't say in your post, but was your rod a spinning or a casti
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Karen, If there is still a white residue, you might try paint thinner - or mineral spirits. But, if you try mineral spirits, you will have to go over it again with alchol to remove the oil left from the mineral spirits. I am not sure what the residue might be composed of. I wonder, if it is possible that you might be seeing some residual alchol, that might have gotten under the old finish an
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Andrew, Just generate a receipt for the rod, as if you were selling the rod to a client. You should be compensated for your parts, as well as your time, in the same way as if you were selling the rod to a client. Roger
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Mike, The 3 inch wheel fits just fine. You just have to either run it without the blade guard, or make a 3 inch blade guard. Or, as Ken pointed out you can always find some 2 inch wheels. I prefer using the 3 inch wheels due to the deeper available depth of cut. Roger
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Karen, Spray it with windex and wipe off. Roger
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Mike, I don't know if you have had this lathe very long or not. There are a few comments on some of the blogs about watching out for the drive assemblies on the head stock: I am guessing that as long as you are careful and don't overload it, it will work very well for you. The lathe uses a standard mt2 head stock and tail stock so that there are lots of chuck options. You migh
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Mike, That idea will work fine with one small modification. If you just cut off a piece of tubing and stick it in the rod, you have a very sharp edge that will cut through a line in an instant. I would suggest that if you do use a tube for the tip of the rod, that you use a naile or other tapered object to "bell" out the end of the tube and to prevent the end of the tube from cut
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Ken, Great idea. I have a 30 foot roll of non skid liner in the shop that I picked up for a $ at a garage sale. I use this material all of the time under my other bench tools to keep them from moving as well. Thanks again for reminding me. Roger
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