Bill, Yes, I have used those guides as well. But I have found that the alconite guides give me excellent performance with no signs of wear on the heaviest rods that I build so for the value oriented clients, I see no need to use the nitride II guides. I do believe that they are a better and perhaps nicer guide, but for a "servicable rod" to represent a good value with virtually no pro
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Bill, Most of the guides that I use are the Fuji Alconite guides, with which, I have had 0 problems. Roger
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Tom, I assume that you are using the Hopkins stripper guide as shown:? You are indicating that after wrapping one guide foot, that the other foot is coming up off the guide? If this is the case, it is a simple matter to bend one, the other, or both feet down a bit so that the guide foot sits absolutely flat on a pefectly flat surface. I always check for any double footed guides to m
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Billy, That is right! Roger
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Rick, Yes, much harder. Roger
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Steve, You are absolutely correct. I have used this style guides before on other light action rods. But apparently they aren't up to the task of this heavier application. So, I will be using my normal guides that I routinely use on all of my heavy action rods. This was a bit of an experiment to verify if these guides would hold up and I found the answer quite quickly. The client only
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Based on a recent experience, I found another way to further check guides for damage. On a recent rod, there were issues with line wear. I ran a Q-tip through all of the guides and could detect no issues at all. Then, I took a razor sharp pointed surgeons scalpel and gently ran it around each guide. On the first three guides, I found severe microscopic were which was easily detectable by
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All, Thanks for the update. I found the problem. The problem is the guide that I used for this rod really wasn't up to the task. I have used this particular guide brand and style before on many other lighter action rods. However, for this heavy use, the guides are showing excessive wear. I won't mention the brand or style of the guides, because I have used this guide for other a
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Alex, My thought exactly. That is what I am going to do before I do anything else. Roger
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Billy, I can't agree with you more. The only thing that may separate this rod, is the number of casts made per day. The client indicated that this rod makes many casts per day with heavy lures and heavy line. When you compare salt water rods, are you speaking of rods that are used for casting - many times per day, or trolling rods, where the rod is let out and reeled in when baits are
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I have built many many spiral wrapped rods in the last few years with generally happy clients. However, I have had a rod come back today with a request that the guides be stripped and rewrapped in a conventional manner. This client uses this particular rod to fish for Muskies - throwing 3-5 oz lures many casts a day - with 80 lb test braided line. He has several other rods that are u
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John, There are lots of good articles on the subject in the Rod Building library. Mudhole has some pretty good articles on the subject as well. If you have specific questions, you can drop me a line. hflier@comcast.net Take care Roger
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David, A guide is a guide is a guide. Place the guide where your static testing tells you that it needs to be placed. Take care Roger
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Russ and Rena, Yes, you are right. You are also right, that if you pay full retail price for items you may very well have a wrapper or dryer that will be very very expensive, using some of the components mentioned above. However, don't underestimate the resourcefullness of the folks who practice this wonderful thing that we call rod building. Sure you can spend several hundred dollars
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Russell is right on. If you want to do drying - pick up a dc or ac timing motor. You can pick up small dc gear motors for less than $20 which will work just fine. Since these are very low current motors, you can easily pick up a dc voltage supply that will simply plug into the wall. You can search the internet and or @#$%& sites as well as surplus stores for these motors. You can also, as
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Phillip With a synchronous motor, the speed is regulated by the number of windings in the motor. That is the reason that the motor is called a synchronous motor. If you use a lamp dimmer and hook it up to the dimmer, you will be cutting power to the motor in the form of lower voltage or current. That is the way that lamp dimmers work. But if you hook up the dimmer to the motor, you will
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I have to agree with Tom. Wonderful directions and they work very well. I picked up a set of long shafted bits, made the grinds to the bits and they all cut wonderfully well. Take care Roger
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Jay, A round 1/2 inch file will work just fine. Take care Roger
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Josh, The process is very simple. Pick up a piece of rod blank. Either new or from an old cut up rod. Select a piece of blank that will either fit tightly inside the blank butt or fit tighty outside the blank butt. When selecting your extension, try to get an extension that has a similar taper as your existing blank to allow the extension taper match the blank taper for an overall better fit
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Josh, With most of the wrappers of which you speak, you can pop off the belt to release the tension and use it as a hand wrapper. However they will both have an issue when used as a hand wrapper since ther will not be any friction pressure to hole the thread taunt when not holding the wrap. You can hand wrap, but will always have to hold the rod to keep tension on it, if you take off the belt,
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Tony, You may or may not be able to do this, but when possible when building multi piece rods, I try to be able to use the guide layout so that I have a guide wrapped at the rod joints. This takes care of rod reinforcement and guide wrapping at the same time. Sometimes this is possible and other times not. Take care Roger
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Steve, You indicated that you were not able to find the O ring that you needed at your local hardware store. I would suggest that you take your rod rest off your lathe, and take it with you to the next trip to the hardware store, and use it to snap on one of the many many different O rings that most good hardware stores have in their plumbing department. Just because an O ring is not th
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Curtis, Yes, all of the afore mentioned methods will work to apply finish. However, if you are in the middle of multiple builds; none of them are really well suited for a production or semi production environment. When building multiple rods, you need to have a process where you coat a rod, get it set up the dryer, turn on the dryer,and forget the rod so that you can get on to other thi
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Steve, What is the diameter of the spool on which the O ring is placed. What is the diameter of the unstretched O ring - i.e. the actual size of the piece of unstretched rubber? If you post these, we can then give you a source for a replacement ring. Take care Roger
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In addition to the previous comments, one of the things that I really appreciate about using a belt sander is the ability to use a tapered stick to hold the guide being prepped. i.e. simply take a dowel, an old tapered artists brush handle or similar. In particular when working with some of the smaller guides, it is difficult to hold the guides securely while prepping the foot. I will tak
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Perhaps one of these will fit?? Roger
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One tool that is a nice thing to have is a 1/16th piece of piano wire that has a needle tip on one end. I use this tool all of the time when I am wrapping. I first use it - to hold in the loop that is left, before I pull the wrap tight. Depending on the wrap, it is possible to have the loop start to twist badly. By inserting the piece of piano wire into the loop and holding it taunt as you pull
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p.s. This bench top 1X30 inch sander is also a very nice small foot print. It is about 10 inches square, so it takes up very little bench space. One thing that you want, if you pick up a sander is a good light. It is nice to have a bright light, right in the area where you are sanding. I use a small 20 watt halogen desktop light that has a gooseneck on the light so that you can take the sma
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Tony, Lose the grinder and get a sander: Pick up a selection of sandpaper belts - ranging from 100 to 400 grit. Put on the grit that you need and sand away. For guide feet, I typically use about 220 grit, or sometimes 320. Here is a possible source for sanding belts: Another nice thing about using the belt sander, is that you can set the sander at right angles to you. That
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Dave, When you fish crappies, do you use floats in your fishing technique. If you do, then check out the bobber called the rocket bobber. This is a solid plastic weighted bobber that you fish with it lying on its side. Then, when you get a very light bite, the bobber only has to swivel and the bobber tips up to sense the bite. I personally like to use these bobbers, because they vastly incr
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