Ed, Ed is right on. I use 24 volt motors for many of my motors. Many of these motors normally sell for $100-$200 and can be obtained for $10- $20. They are industrial motors and have extremely long life with excellent bearings. Take care Roger
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In addition to Marks excellent comments, after obtaining the grooved rollers you need, stop over to your local hardware store. Then go to the plumbing department and pick up the rubber O ring that will fit nicely into the groove of the roller. When you get the O rings, pick up a bunch of spares, so th at if one breaks or wears out, you will have a spare. Good luck and a good project.
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Bill, Whenever I prep smaller guides, I use a tapered stick. I typically use the handle of an old artists brush that I am done using. I chop off the brush part and am left with the handle. Then, I will chuck the end of the handle that I just cut and chuck it in an electric drill. I will run this over my rotating belt sander, removing any excess wood and making a nice taper on the handle.
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Rick Your wrapper will work fine. Just put the middle upside down roller about 1/3 of the way down from the tip. Then, put the two other rollers about a foot on each side. This is the spot where the spine is typically the most pronounced. Obviously, do not put the blank in the chuck on the wrapper motor drive system. Take care Roger
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Rick, Any more, if I need to find the spine - I generally do it by hand. Just put a good flex in the rod, with the tip on the floor - and let the rod spin in my hand. If there is sufficient spine to be worthy of note, it will center itself on the spine. I also have a couple of power wrappers. The power wrappers that I have were made by myself. The rod rests are made of three skate board bea
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Steve, About 9 times out of 10 - if you have mixed the correct 1:1 ratio with your epoxy finish - the problem is inadequate mixing. i.e. after measuring out the correct quantity - mix for at least 2 minutes or 120 seconds. So often , folks mix the epoxy until it looks mixed, but it actually hasn't properly combined. I don't like to go over another finish that is tacky, but many folks ha
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Jason, Check the fall flyer. In particular check item - IB 20 These are painted blanks with orange tips. The blanks are 50 inches long as delivered. You can trim the butt of tip to get the desired action. If you want an ultra light action - cut from the butt. If you want medium action, cut from the tip. They also have the same blanks - unpainted in clear. Take care Roger
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Jason, I was just over at Wild River Distributing yesterday and they had some wonderful blanks that can be used for a dead stick rod. I have also picked up some excelent dead stick blanks from Thorne Brothers earlier this week. Great products - both. I think that the best dead stick rods are made from Glass. Glass can be ground to give a more flexible tip - that is difficult
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Pete, I build handles like this all of the time. During the sanding of the handles, the dark and light cork dust gets mixed up on the handle. Not a big deal. After I am done sanding, buy while the handle is still in the lathe, I hit the handle - while spinning with high pressure air. This takes care of about 95% of the issue. Then, I go over the handle with a wet rag that has either alch
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John, After getting your .035 wire - figure how long you need for the hook keeper. Then, use a blunt chisel and hammer to flatten the wire at the necessary points, before bending or cutting to length. Then, bend the wire, and finally cut the wire at the end of the flattened portion. You will have a hook holder ready to go - with a nice flat end, that will nicely fit the blank. Take c
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John, Although I suspect that the bond will be all right with the very dark hardner, I don't like either the look or the possible chance of failure. I don't know what area you are located, but if you are in the Wi, or MN area, there is a lumber yard called Menards. Menards carry various types of epoxy in 1 lb tubs. It is very inexpensive - $9 for the 1 lb tubs of epoxy. I have been u
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Dave, That is fine to build a rod with a longer handle than needed. Then, after use, if you don't like it; cut the handle to length. The only down side of this equation, is that by cutting off handle length, you are making the total rod length less. If you want to keep the original rod length, try to build the handle length to its required length. Take care Roger
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Scotty, 1. giv e your furnace a good cleaning. 2. Change your furnace filter frequently. 3. Don't sand in the same room, or better yet building, that you do you finish work. 4. Use a good vacuum, and empty it frequently and change the filter often. 5. Any time that you do finish work, clean the shop and vacuum on the day before you do the finish work. 6. For worst case, use a dryer b
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As Bill said - cheap is not bad. I am sure that most folks have old pieces of cork or cork handles lying around. Use the plug cutter to make nice plugs at 0 cost and use as needed. Take care Roger
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Jay, I have used similar plugs as well. No problem, if the hole is only 1/4 inch. But, as I said before - when using premade handles that have been remed out to fit a blank, the end hole is often much larger. ----------- I did some futher testing today and after a bit of clean up on the plug cutters - I had excellent luck. I did find that on the first few plugs, using my drill press th
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James, the different 8 versions are for a transition guide to go from the higher frame guides down to the short fly guides. They work very well. I tend to use a 30,16,10, 8 high, 8 low, 7 fly, and then down to 6 for the rest, including the tip. These are the guides that I use for a heavier action rod, with reels using heavier line. One of the things that I have found from customers wh
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Matt, Thanks for the update I am using about the same process and it works fine. The thing that I am trying to do is to eliminate some of the waste that one gets with this style plug cutter. Since most of the cork that we cut is soft - relative to other woods - I think that I am going to put one of my plug cutters on the sacrificial block and try an experiment. I think that I am going t
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Ken, I just built a pink from from one of the mudhole blanks last night. It came out very nice indeed. The action on the blanks is moderate, but the blank action is nice. Take care Roger
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Scott, In lie of anything else, just cut all of the guides off the rod and wrap on a new set. Often, it is just in the best interest of the rod, and of your time, to cut your lossess, and rewrap the rod with new guides as a set. Take care Roger
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I am in the market for a different plug cutter for cutting cork plugs for handle plugs. I have picked up one, but it seems that there is a fair amount of waste with the plugs being cut. Any recommendations for a good tapered hole plug cutter for cutting 1/4 inch, 5/16th, 3/8th, and 1/2 inch plugs. I use these plugs for plugging the ends of the cork handles after glue up. It is easy
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Matt, After building lots of rods, I have come up with my own standard of 7 inches for a spinning reel and 9 inches for a casting reel. However, these are only the starting lengths that I will suggest to a customer, because it works for myself and many of my other clients. However, if the rod is exceptionally short, or long - the handle length will be different. If the casting rod owner -
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Donald, I could take a picture, and if you like I can certainly post one. However, all that it is is a pair of large syringes. Then, I have a pair of pvc tubes that are a bit larger and longer than the syringes taped together to store the tubes vertically, when not being used. The tips of the syringes have been cut off and a 3/16th hole drilled into the end of the syringes to allow this
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p.s. Since there is no tip on the syringe, I just barely immerse the end of the syringe in the epoxy to minimize waste and ease clean up. Of course, I insure that the syringe is far enough in the epoxy to avoid bubbles in the syringe. If you have a bubble, you have a different measure of epoxy in the syringe. Take care Roger
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Eddie, I had the same problem and looked for different solutions. Finally, I picked up the perfect solution. At a surplus store, I found some large sized syringes. These syringes are about 1 inch in diameter and about 3 inches tall. I cut the tip off the plastic syringe, and then experimented with hole sizes in the bottom of the syringe. I think that I finally settled on a drill bit of be
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It makes sense that a metal mandral would rust when using Titebond. Titebond is a water based glue and the manderal is metal. Water and oxygen on metal equals rust. No water in any type of epoxy and hence no rust. Take care Roger p.s. As one of the other posts suggested - if using titebond, the use of a non metallic mandral is a good idea.
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p.s. Here is another fellow from Nebraska who has some good ways to prepare Carp for cooking. Yes EarnieFan I do eat Carp. I grew up in Eastern Colorado and when I was a kid we always used Carp as fertilizer in the garden. When I went to college in Nebraska one of my buddies from Omaha invited me home for a weekend. He took me to a fish place on South 24th Street called Joe Tess's. He didn'
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Lee, Ever wonder where the carp came from? Ever wonder if Carp is good to eat? Take a look at the following "history of Carp introduction into the USA" Take care Roger
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Lee, Good points all. Actually, rather than scoff, catch a couple of carp and smoke them. It is rather remarkable how good they actually taste. p.s. Don't tell anyone, but about every other day that I was fishing the mississippi this fall, I would see commercial fishermen bring in boat loads of carp. I talked to the carap fishermen and they indicated that they were netting them along
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Terry, If you check the label on Goo Gone, you will find that one of the principal ingrediants is Goo Gone. I use either, which one happens to be handy. I do think that Goo Gone is a bit less toxic than Xylene. -- Scotty, Xylene can be obtained at any paint or hardware or big box store in the paint department. It is commonly used as a thinner or cleaner for Epoxy paint. That is one
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Scotty, Whenever having a suspect location of contamination, I use Xylene to completely clean the blank with a clean cloth. By using Xylene to wipe down the blank - before wrapping and applying finish - I have solved all of my fish eye problems. Take care Roger
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