Tony, Can you please send me a private e-mail to: hflier@comcast.net? I have some questions for you on one of the pictures you posted on the site. Thanks for your help. Roger
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In the upper midwest, I sell about 95% spinning rods for my walleye fishing customers and about 80% bait casters for my bass fishing customers. Then, it is about 100% bait casters for my heavy northern and muskie fishing customers. Of course any of my clients that are traveling to the ocean for the big fish are about 100% bait casters. Take care Roger
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Andy, You won't notice the difference. It will look different, but you really won't feel any difference while fishing. I would however, suspect that you might find the rod might be more uncomfortable to hold while fishing. I really think that this is one area that all of us as rod builders need to respect. i.e. the needs of the customer, both for appearance, his requirements, appearance
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John , Don't sand the blank and don't split the tube. If one doesn't fit, use a larger size. If the next size up is too large, use an underwrap to fill the gap. Sanding the blank - especially in the thin tip area will weaken the tip. Scraping the finish off the tip is fine, but don't remove resin and graphite from the tip. Splitting the tube, weakens the tube tip mount. I know t
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p.s. I had a customer come to me last summer, and had me changed "all" of his heavier rods to " roller tops". On a couple of these rods, he Only Casts 100% of the time for big fish. He typically uses either 60 or 80 lb braid on these reels. He indicated that after a season of heavy use, is has enjoyed the roller tops, and has had virtually no line problems with any of
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Tom, If the customer expects to catch "heavy" fish - stay with the roller tip. If not, then go back to the ring guide. The 60 lb braid, is thick enough and stiff enough so that "most of the time" it will not cause an issue with the roller tip. If the customer happens to catch a "heavy" fish, he will be happy to have the roller tip. Either will work.
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Tom is right on. Very easy to ruin a good handle. Often you can find some pretty inexpensive handles on close out, etc. from various sellers. Even if this isn't the handle that you want, an inexpensive handle like this makes a good practice device to get the feel for the necessary techniques to turn a nice handle. If you glue up cork out of individual pieces, one of the toughest thing
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John, No problem. Your first cut on the blanks will cut off the wax. Finish and use. Take care Roger
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James, Pick up a nib, quill, and some testors paint and sign and letter the rod youself. Take care Roger
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Since the Batson blank is a matt finish, it is easy to restore the finish. Cut off the grips and reel seat. Use heat to soften the epoxy to remove it with a straight edge razor blade scraping at 90 degrees to the blank to avoid cutting graphite. Once all of the epoxy has been removed, you can use various grades of sandpaper to make the blank look exactly as it was before. However, from
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Lots of landing nets use either bicycle handles or EVA and they work very well indeed. Take care Roger
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Jason, For the grip, I would either use EVA , or a bicycle handle grip. Easy, inexpensive, and it would work very well. Take care Roger
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Andy, I just did a quick check on the speedball nibs: In general, it appears that the left hand nibs of which you speak are of the broad tipped variety, where the tip to the right or left - depending on the users hand preference is very important. i.e. if you are making very wide lettering strokes, the entire nib needs to remain in contact with the material. In the case of the rig
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Tom, I would put the rod in a rod drying chuck, mix up a batch of epoxy and lay it in the area needing filling. Then, I would use a heat gun to heat the mix as the rod is rotating, The heat will thin the epoxy to water like consistency and allow it to flow into and fill any gaps. Use good judgement in how much to use and keep an eye on it as it cools. Insure that you have the right amount,
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Brent, Do you have any power tools? If you do have a grinder, a fine grinding wheel works very well to taper the foot. If you have an electric drill, you can get an inexpensive grinding wheel that you chuck into the drill to grind the taper on the feet. If you have a belt sander, use fine sand paper on the belt and use it to taper the feet. I personally like to use my 1X30 inch belt s
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Andy, I have many of the speedball tips that I use for writing. My wife is right handed and I am left handed, and neither of us see any difference in the ability to use the pens. It does take practice. It takes the right ink or paint to flow through the tips. You also need to keep the tips very very clean. If you get any deposits in the nib slit, the ink or paint wil no longer flow. If
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In order to deliver a quality product to my off site customers, I like to pack my finished rods in plastic tubing. To close the bag, I have either taped or stapled the bag close. However, I had the pleasure of receiving an Impulse Sealer today to seal the ends of the bags. If any of you folks do the same thing for your finished rods, you might consider the purchase of such a sealer. T
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p.s. There are several rod builders in the area that are using drum style dryers and every one of them are rotating the drums at 6 rpm. They are either a direct drive, or a belt reduction drive to get the speed at 6 rpm. Note, most of these same builders are also using a high speed device to apply the finish at speeds up to 50-180 rpm. However, for the actual long term drying, they are a
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Steve, I am in the process of checking out the same thing. You can do some @#$%& site searches for motors of the desired rpm and can often get reasonable prices. The one thing to be sure to verify for ANY motor that is to be used on a dryer to insure that it is Continuous duty. Many motors that are available are Intermittent duty and can get very very hot, or shut down - with the thermal
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Donald, If someone asks me to take me fishing with his boat, I will generally ask that I pay for the gas for his truck or tow vehicle. This is in exchange for the ride, as well as the use and wear and tear on his boat. Take care Roger
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Stu, Take a look at any of the commonly available rod rests that are used for power wrappers. I have built a lot of them and use three of them for a super sensitive spine finder. All of these rod rests have three ball bearings on them. Two on the bottom rail - almost but not quite touching, and a 3rd one on the top rail to hold the blank in place when turning or wrapping. To use these
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Bill, I have my wife use a fine Speed Ball nib and pen holder. Then, I use Testors Model Paint. To clean the pen, as well as the blank if needed, I use Xylene. It is very compatible with the paint and does an excellent job of keeping the fine slots in the pen qill clean. Let dry for at least 20 minutes, and then use routine finish - as when coating guide wraps. Take care Roger
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Randy, If you have broken the rod a foot from the tip, you can likely splice it with little issue. The problem comes into rods that have been broken just a few inches from the tip. Especially, in the case of light or medium light rods with fast or extra fast tips, repair in this area near the tip will often ruin the action of the rod. However, when the break is a foot or so away from the
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MM, Most of my spinning rods have the first guide at a spacing of about 16 to 25 inches, depending on the overall length of the rod etc. My first starting point for most rods is about 20 inches. I may tweak the guide up or down a bit from there. Take care Roger
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Steve, Many many many cases of tacky finish are the result of incomplete mixing of parts A and B. Use equal parts of A and B. Use syringes to insure that you have equal parts of A and B. Then, when mixing, be sure to mix for a total of 120 seconds or 2 minutes. Too many folks mix for a few seconds or a minute and then end up with a finish that does not cure. I had the same issue yea
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Marty, That is one of my favorite blanks. The key thing is to have enough guides to load the tip section properly. Generally, I space the first tip guides on this blank at about 3 1/2 or 4 inches from the tip and on down the rod for the first two or three guides. Then, space out the guides to follow the power of the rod. Depending on the guides and lines being used, I may use guides fro
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Doyne, A couple of different ideas. If you build your handle on the blank and run the cork all of the way to the butt of the rod, you will have the blank flush with the end cork section. When I use this method, after completely finishing the handle, I will take another solid piece of matching or contrasting cork and chuck it in my Lathe. I use a small 1/16th drill bit in a chuck on the ch
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Bill, When building these telescoping style rods, the only real concern you have is the placement of the first gide above the bottom half of the rod. Obviously, if you want the sections to telescope and fit inside one another, the first guide on the tip section, needs to be far enough up the rod, to allow the rod to fully compress in its storage mode. Take care Roger
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Jim, If working on a spinning rod style guide setup, and the fisherman wants to use heavy lb test line, you need to be concerned with line drag in the first guide as well as line slap. I have often seen that if using heavy mono line - like 30-80 lb line, as the line loops spool out, there is significant friction and catching on the first guide if not large enough. The reason for size 40
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Larry, If you have any of the long curing epoxies but find that they are a bit viscous - or thick - you can heat them up and they will become as liquid as water. It is not a good idea to do this with a 5 or 10 minute epoxy, because the heat shortens the cure time to nearly 0. However, if you have a 30 or 60 minute epoxy, the added heat will shorten the cure to 5-15 minutes which is fine f
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