Jay, If you are happy with the apperance of the finish, no need to add a second coat. Generally speaking the only purpose of the finish is to coat the wraps, help the wraps adhere to the finish - and finally for appearance. If the thread is well coated, the finish is smooth and to your liking leave it alone. Many folks including myself will generally use only one coat of high build on t
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Tom, I use a very very thin abrasive wheel to cut blanks, eva, cork rubberized cork, etc with no issues at all. I suspect that there is actually less dust and waste using this method than using any type of hand or band saw. I will agree that if you can spin the material to get a nice uniform cut, that a very sharp blade on a good knife does a great job on EVA and Hapalon. Actually I use
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Andrew, I simply wipe down the guide with alchol and make sure that it is completly dry. This will insure that all of the dust is off the coating. Recoat and you will be fine. Take care Roger
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Steve, You are right, I am not familiar with every single rod and blank, and it is certainly up to the manufacturer to leave ribs on a blank if they prefer. I apologize. Take care Roger
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Rick, No normal "production" blank should have visible ribs. Normally, the ribs are part of the layup process and a good production run will sand off all of the ribs. Either sand off the ribs, or exchange it for a different blank. i.e. Unless you like the looks of the ribs. Sometimes these ribs add a rather unique special effect. They really don't affect the action of th
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Mike, Verty simply put. Start at the tip and deflect the rod. Put a guide at the location where the blank begins to bend. Then, continue to deflect the blank, again, as the blank continues to deflect, simply add guides as required to insure that the line will follow the curvature of the loaded blank. By the time that you near the non bending portion of the rod, you will be at about the 20
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Josh, I have used drywall sanding screen, but it is not my material of preference. When I shape grips - if there is exposed glue as when you glue cork rings together, I will start with a Stanley Surform planer. This will qickly cut through the glue lines and get down to the cork. Then, I switch to progressivly finer grades of sandpaper. I will start with either 60 or 80 grit, then go to
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John, I know where you are coming from. My son called today and said that his furnace is making a big Buzz, but no heat. So, they have enough residual heat to make it till morning when I will take a run down and see what the issue is with the heat generator called a furnace. Take care Roge r
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Brandon, Perhaps, I was not understanding your original post. Are you speaking about cutting standard 1/2 inch thick cork rings into 1/4 inch or 1/8th inch thick rings? If so, I certainly agree with the use of a band saw, with a very fine toothed blade, and the use of a jig to hold the cork ring. If you use a jig to hold the ring, it is pretty tough to not get a good cut. Without the us
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Phil, I agree, Also, when you start talking about using exotic woods in the reel seats and grips, you can pretty well throw out the idea of "light weight". A typical wood handle is about 3X the weight of a comparable cork handle. But, I certainly love the look of the exotic wood handle and I haven't found that the use of the heavier wood handle has much effect on the performance
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I do the same thing as George. Roger
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Brandon, A mini table saw works well if you use a very very fine toothed blade. Another thing that works well is a small chop saw with a very fine toothed blade or an abrasive wheel on the saw for ultra smooth cuts. One of the things with cutting cork - when it is in the form of a handle is to be able to get the bulk of the handle aligned so that it is perpendicuar to the blade or cutting
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Russell, You have it right. Any liquid can be absorbed by the body through the skin. The more volatile the liquid, the easier it is for the skin to absorb the liquid. If in doubt and you want to eliminate the possibility, be sure to use rubber or latex gloves when handling any thing that you don't want to be absorbed by your body. -- Also, as I mentioned earlier, any of the very vola
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Larry, Try them all out and deicde for your self. I have found that over time, there are reel features that are more important than the absolute lightest weight. Don't discount the importance of weight, but don't discard the purchase of a reel because the weight is different than one with lighter weight but without the features that you want. Take care Roger
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Phillip, One can use an X thread to hold the tag end of a guide wrap but many folks find it much more convenient and more reliable to simply use a bit of masking tape to hold the tag thread end. As you get into rod building, you will find it to your advantage to have masking tapes in widths starting with 1/8th, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1, 1 1/2, 1 3/4 and 2 inch widths. During the course of a few
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Phillip, I will use Acetone for certain cleaning jobs, but only if other things don't work and only in the fresh outside air with plenty of ventilation. For adhesive removal - with no finish damage, the best thing to use is common mineral spirits or paint thinner. I have never seen any blank or finish ever damaged by mineral spirits. Also, mineral spirits do a wonderful job of removing ad
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Bill, For my clients as well as myself; we have seen a lot of use on these guides by braided line and thus far - no issues. Take care Roger
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Moses, I expect that time will take care of your problem. i.e. let it set up for 24 hours and it will likely set up. However, if you find that it doesn't set up - I have to ask the question. For what length of time did you mix the finish? For folks who are just starting; it is a common problem to not mix the finish for a long enough period of time. If you find that the first finish i
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Jeffrey, On a similar vein, I had a co worker years ago have an incident with his table saw. He was ripping 2X stock improperly. As a result of a lumber hang in the saw, the saw caugh tth piece of lumber, pitched it across the garage and right through the wall of the shop where it ended up in the center of the lawn. It is pretty remarkable how much power some of the machines that we use
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Do you have issues storing blanks, unfinished or finished rods in a small space while insuring that the blanks and works in progress are not damaged? A very inexpensive and easy to build rod stand is to take a piece of 2X lumber , a piece or pieces of PVC tubing, a saw and a drill and go to work. First select the size pve tubes that you want to use for stands. Depending on what you want to
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Mark, I spent some time on the lathe with each locking nut to give the nuts its final shape. I cut the nut about 2/10th of an inch long and then used sand paper on the spinning nut to give the nut its final shape and form while the nut was spinning on my lathe. If you don't have a lathe, you can rig up a setup on an electric drill to accomodate the nut. Simply take an old or new size
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Hillrie, Here is the site from which, I purchased the various sizes of elastic bands: Take care Roger
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Scott, Here in the midwest, most of the folks that build heavier action rods like northern, flipping stick, Muskie and salt water rods always use epoxy to glue on the tips. It is simple, quick, and very effective. If you ever need to remove a tip that has been epoxied on, simply use a torch to heat the tip and the tip comes right off. The heat from the torch will soften the epoxy enough t
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Mark, You need some gap betwen the screw style fore grip and the rod blank to allow for easy rotation of the fore grip to hold the reel on the rod. The thing that I have done is to trim down the length of the fore grip, so that with the reel in question for the rod attached, I have the end of the fore grip come just to the end of the reel seat. As a result, there is nothing in front of the re
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I have been building a lot of ice rods recently with some very very fine tips. I have also been using some very small guides with very short feet on the rods. As a result, it has been a bit tedious to get the guides held in place while wrapping the guides. Based on some feedback that I have received from this forum, I decided to try using elastic bands to hold the guides to the rod. G
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Kirk, I suspect that the glue worked well, because that is what brain surgeons use to fix up your brain when they are operating on it. Take care Roger
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Walker, If I was making an EVA handle, I would use one of the standard butt caps that I have used for years. I pick up the appropriate sized rubber chair leg that will initially be a bit larger than the butt of the rod, but can then be sanded down. I make a mandral that fits into the end of a drill or into the lathe and slip the rubber chair leg on the mandral. Essentially, this is simpl
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Andrew, In addition to the technique that you suggested, I have lately been turning butt caps out of solid rubberized cork on my lathe. I use a flat washer on the headstock side of the lathe, with a very small short drill bit inserted into the headstock, to keep the cork centered. I have the drill be sticking out just far enough to act as a centering pin for the cork. Then, I use a rotating
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James, About 99% of the time when you get a football in your guide foot finish, it is the result of putting too much finish on the wrap. Better to put on two or three coats of thin finish - rather than one heavy coat that gathers in the middle of the guide foot. When I have encounterd this issue, myself; if I catch it in time, I can use a bit of gentle heat from a heat gun to thin the p
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Chia, Maybe we need to post a warning when the moon phase switches out of the current quadrent. Take care Roger
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