The following articles gives a person some pretty good insight about epoxy in general, and also points out some of the specifics of epoxy use, handling, types, etc. If any part of the article applies to you as a rod builder during your work, consider using the advice. Roger
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Ron, If you are uncomfortable in working too fast, and if you aren't comfortable working with a thinnner finish, simply work in smaller batches. If necessary, mix one batch per each guide. Tom is correct however, normally you should spend no more than about two minutes total to do a complete guide finish on a typical 8 guide rod. i.e. 10-15 seconds per guide. I use my power wrapper t
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Bill. I read your post with interest. I do agree 100% with the physics equations with respect to circumfurence, angular velocity and tangantial velocity. But for the case of a rod dryer, you really don't care about these components of rotation. The only thing you really care about for a rod dryer, is 1. i.e. how many total rotations will the rod make in a given amount of time. Lets say
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Alex, When I built some drum dryers last year, I built an extra set of drums. If you have any interest, I could sell the drums at a reasonable price. Do a search under my name - roger wilson - and you can see the pictures of the drums as well as the dc motors that I used to power the dryer. I use a square tube for the dryer main rod so that there is no issue about the drums turning on th
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Peter, Many times they will interchange, but sometimes they won't. Just take potential swap parts and try them for yourself. Take care Roger
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Bad idea Ron. If you need thinner epoxy, it is really a better idea to use that has the right thickness. Acetone will work to some degree, but the issue is that you may have problems with entrapped epoxy in the finish as a result of it not evaporating before the epoxy cures. Epoxy comes in all sorts of different thickness for different applications. Buy the type epoxy you need for the b
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Mark, Yes, I have the same setup as you do and get virtually no dust at all. I simply take a shop vacuum and put the flat nozzle on the end of the hose. The flat nozzle, increases the velocity of the suction from the vacuum. Have a bracket, with a notch in it that allows me to place the nozzle right behind the saws abrasive wheel. About 99% of the dust ends up in the vacuum. The key of t
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Ron , Rather than builing up a rod with many many guides, simply use masking tape to do guide number of experiments. It is easy to tape guides on a rod and do some testing. Go ahead and put 30 guides on the rod and then start taking them off. Put a guide on every 3 inches and reduce them in stages to 3 feet between guides. It would be a shame to build up, wrap and finish a rod and
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Mark, Great job on the anodizing! Roger
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Jim, I agree with your statement. I have built many rods on various St. Croix blanks and have nothing but good things to say about them. I have handled a few of the RX8 built up rods when they first came out, but have not had the chance to see or handle the 7'6" ML RX8 blank. That is why I was asking for the hands on comparison, who had handled both of the blanks as well as built up r
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Mark, Many years ago when starting I wrapped a single rod with a hand wrapper and vowed to never do it again. Sure, I could have persisted, but I chose not to. Rather I have built many powered wrappers over the years with various motors and beds. All have worked well. As time has evolved, the wrappers have evolved as well to finally have a wrapper that works well for me. I have the wrapper s
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Lance, Simply because for this particular product, Acetone works much much better than alchol or water or any combination of the two. I use the filler to go over the handle, paying attention to any of the deep pits, etc. But there is always a build up, that needs to be there to accomodate shrinkage etc. Then, I put the handle in the lathe and spin it with an acetone dampened rag. This do
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Do any builders have hands on for building and or using the Batson RX8 - walleye series, compared to the St. Croix SC5 Legend. In particular, comparing the 7'6"ML blank of each series. Thanks for any comparisions. In comparing the specs, the numbers are very close. But would like to have user experience, if possible Roger
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Bill, Go back to Home Depot and get the Elmers filler in light Oak. This comes in a tube about 6 inches high. I think you will be happy with it. It sets up nicely in a farily short time. If you need to clean up, the use of acetone - used carefully - will take care of the filler. Roger
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Carl, You may simply have a bad bottle of color preserver. Normally, with a single coat of good color preserver, you will have no transparancy issues with the thread. I suggest that you go with a different brand of color preserver. Roger
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Tom, If the rod was built in 1974 or 1975 do both yourself and your brother a favor. Cut all of the guides off of the rod, clean up the blank, and tie on a new set of modern guides along with a new chevron. Use a good 2-part thread wrap coating and call it good. Take care Roger
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1. Walker, when gluing up the rings, use a round compression clamp to eliminate the glue line. Basically the compression clamp is simply a split ring, of the ring size that is simply clamped around the ring being glued up and then c-clamped together. 2. When sanding, always use a backing board. If you don't use a backing board, the glue edges can end up not being sanded as well as the res
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p.s. You don't have to buy a new lathe. Check out the @#$%& sites, check out your local pawn shops, used tool shops, check craigs list, check your local newspaper for Lathes. You can often find a lathe that will work very very well for rod building for very little money. --------------- Another good source for making your own lathe is a simple used fractional hp motor. Often you se
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Bill, If you want to turn your own grips for very little money, simply mount a variable speed drill in a horizontal position. Put a mandrel into the drill. Mount a mandral support at the end of the mandral. Thread a handle onto the mandral that you have glued up and want to turn. Enjoy. This is a picture of an inexpensive handle turning device that I obtained from some one else som
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Parick, There is nothing wrong with the number of guides that you are using, if you are happy with the way that the blank loads when playing a fish. If you get reasonable blank loading, i.e. having the line follow the contour of the blank, you are fine. Generally speaking, the faster the rods action, the more guides you need near the tip to load the rod properly. With a slower actio
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Alex, I agree, you can dial in the speed you need with pulleys. But what about reverse? Roger
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For those folks who have not used a power wrapper that is powered with a DC motor might try one sometime. A DC gearmotor has the advantages of elininating all of the use of different sized pulleys to get the desired low wrapping speed. DC motors have very good low speed high torque characteristics which make for very precise sub 1 rpm wrapping that is necessary for some of the fancy and or ev
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Patrick, I doubt that you have any thing wrong with your guide size and spacing setup. But if you want to check, and if you don't have larger running guides, just leave off the running guides and do some casting with just the first three guides and the tip. Let us know what you find with that set up. You could also just go to a single #3 about 1/2 way between the size 10 guide and the t
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I agree wiht Bill. The Aero Reel seats are becoming the preferred reel seat for reel seats for many of my clients. I will show them rods built up with several different styles of seats and most of the rods that I have sold in the last 6 months have been built with the Aero seats, simply because the client prefers the feel of the finished reel seat - handle - with these products. Also, the
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Peter When ever possible, I avoid the use of any putty or filler. Any putty or filler - no matter the method or type, will eventually fail after use. So, if you can work with near perfect cork - which is getting increasingly hard do to in the days of current cork quality - avoid adding any filler. I also would rather not add any finish or preserver over the cork as well. I prefer the natu
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Tom, If you are going to use the rod for your self, double check the ergonomics and "feel" of the minima reel seat - before you make the installation permenant. Many folks love minima seats, and many folks hate minima seats. Folks say that it saves weight. Perhaps. it does, but the real issue in building a rod, is not the absolute weight of a rod, but where - on the rod - is t
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Mark, In addtion, another way to make a nice leather grip is to use a continuous strip of leather to create the grip. i.e. take a pice of leather strip, say 1/2 inch wide. Wet the leather, and then starting at one end of the handle stretch and wrap the strap the leather around the handle forming the handle in the very same way that you would put cork tape on a Surf rod. When done well, this mak
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Bob, In addtition to Bob's comments, I would like to add the following: You can get the leather really quite wet to get it nice and soft. Wrap the wet leather around your handle form , wrap it with clear sealing tape and let the leather dry for a week. Take off the sealing tape and expose the dry leather. Now, use the glue to put the "preformed leather" on the form. By doing this
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