Gavin, If you have never worked with it before, do yourself a favor and shrink on a few pieces of material that you don't care about first. It is not a big deal - just use a heat gun or hair dryer to supply non flame heat to the shrink tubing. A flame will certainly shrink the tubing, but you run the risk of having it ignite and or melt. The heat gun and or hair dryer minimize the risk fo
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Eddie, Go with a midi - variable speed, and lathe bed extension. Many nice lathes on the market for a decent price. Penn state markest some nice lathes that are reasonably priced. Also, delta, jet and others makes some nice ones as well. Remember, the lathe is only part of the purchase. You will need cutting tools, chucks, chuck adapters, manderals, tail stock adapters etc. D
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Split grips will work out fine. One thing you might thing about is to go ahead and get everything built up on the rod except for the butt cap. Leave off the last inch of the rod, and the butt cap. Go ahead, place the guides, and wraps and finish. Put the reel on that you want to use on the reel. Then, if you find that you have a tip heavy issue, you can add a wrap, or several wraps of l
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Walt, The one for the wood or balsa models. The same type glue that are parents told us not to sniff for fear of getting high. One of the main components is acetone, so it dries quite quickly. Roger
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Andy, When I first started with the butt caps, I used your method. However, the issue that I had with this method was the "shaping" part of the equation. I have found that I was unable to "shape" the butt cap in a free hand environment. i.e. hand sanding holding the rod. This included free sanding, disk sanding and belt sanding. The grip never turned out completely roun
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I have used several different golden oak wood filler that have worked well. I purchased a tube of the Mudhole cork filler and found it to be virtually the same as the Elmers - golden oak wood filler. All of the above work very well. --------- Another option is to use cork sanding dust that you mix with model airplane cement. The advantage of mixing it with model airplane cement, is tha
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John, I do this clean up work - routinely - on rod rebuilds, by chucking the rod in my slow speed lathe, and lightly sanding the handle. I was able to pick up a variable speed dc motor that I used to power a 5 inch machinest chuck. I clamp this setup to my bench, and use several of my roller steady rests to support the balance of the rod. Wherever I have a steady rest, I use several wrap
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Scott, I actually bought a small lathe to primarily do this one job. i.e. make the rod butt cap on the lathe. I have made up a flat faced cap to fit into the lathe chuck. Then, I have made up antther cap - that I have turned out of rubberized cork to fit the shape of the tail stock. In the chuck side of the lathe, I put in a 1/16th drill bit, that protruded just a bit to hold the but
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Robert, I look for the files anytime I am in a hardware, surplus, or box store. I have also picked up a few very special industrial files from the big box @#$%& site. It is easy to get a 1/4, 3/8th, and 1/2 inch files. It is a bit tougher to get other ones. One of the key things to get in these files is to get them as long as possible. If you find them too long, you can always cut them of
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p.s. One of the reasons that I ask, was that a year ago, I build a very nice St. Croix Tournament bass casting rod for myself. I had ended up with a 6 inch back grip on this rod. After using it on about 4 outings, I came to the conclusion that although I loved the rod, and its performance, I hated the lack of an offsetting back grip on the rod. So, I took off the butt tip, added 4 inches to
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I have seen a few rods where the rods have been built such that there is essentially no rod length behind the reel seat. Most of these rods were built for basserrs who palmed their reels all of the time, never took their hands off the reel and didn't want anything behind the reel to get in their way. I am just curious if anyone has built such a rod, and if so - what has been the customers lon
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Donald, Many folks who build rods using a tennessee style handle - whether it is a long rod, or a short rod for ice fishing use this technique to stiffen the grip. A tennessee handle is composed 100% of handle material - whether it is cork or some other material. If a person is building a rod, with a relatively small diameter blank - especially ice rods of very small size. the cork or foa
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Tony, I shape all of my arbors by threading them on a tapered file of the appropriate size which holds them nicely in place. Then, I chuck the file in an electric drill and while spinning the arbor, hold it against a spinning belt sander. It only takes a few seconds to nicely size the arbor. Use a very gentle touch and relatively fine paper and the job goes quickly. If you are using the
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Walt, Most graphite blanks will take a set if they are improperly stored. If they are stored with the tips leaning against the wall, it is quite possible that they will take a set from the constant bend. Graphite rods that are used incorrectly as a downrigger rod, will also take a significant bend if used heavily in this application. Blanks should either be stored flat with full suppor
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Andrew, If you have a lathe, and turn your handle in the lathe, it is very easy to get a perfect centered hole. Bore your hole - turning the handle, rather than the drill bit. i..e. chuck the handle into the lathe chuck. Insert a drill bit of about the same size as your manderal into the tail stock. Now, turn on the lathe, spinning the handle and move the tail stock containing the dri
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Raymond, I might suggest the following: 1. I rather suspect that your choice of blank repair was probably just fine. 2. When repairing a blank, I first find a pice of blank, with a relatively thin wall thickness that will fit tightly on the inside of the broken ends of the blank. 3. Then, I find a pice of blank, with a relatively thin wall thickness that will fit tightly on the outside of
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Willian, I just reread your post, and I apologize for not carefully reading your original post. You are planning on building a full lenght - 9'6" RX8 blank for steel head - and you will be using it in icy spring conditions. Great choice. As long as you only use the handle of the rod to fight the fish, and not grab the blank it will work wonderfully well for you. As I said about the g
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Raymond, As with any ceramic - there is a very very slim possiblity that you might get a ceramic pop. However, it is not that much more likely to pop on an ice rod, than it is on a summer rod. Your blank selection for an ice rod could be of concern to me. It is really dependent on the blank, and tip size as well as overall length of this completed ice rod. --------- Ice rods, by thei
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Scott, You are correct. However, in these days of material shortages in areas like quality cork - good builders will look to ALL sources for material that works well for building rods. It makes little difference as to the name on the material or to the vendor that supplies it. The only thing that matters to the customer at the end of the day - is this the rod that I ordered and I am ple
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Go to any good hardware store in the plumbing department and they will have what you need for a very ressonable price. Take care Roger
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Dave, Rather than removing the fighting butt, why don't you simply put a cap over the butt. Most rods using fighting butts have a cap - rubber or plastic - to cover the butt when the fighting butt is not wanted or needed. Give it a thought. I think that if you find the right butt cap cover that you will be well pleased wit h the results. Then, when you happen on that huge fish an
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I agree with Bill in the use of double footed guides until you get to the bottom of the rod for durability. Take care Roger
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Marc, A spiral wrap will work just as well on a multisection rod as a single section rod. The one thing that I might add, is to place some type marker on your rod sections to add in assembling the rod. With a conventional wrapped rod, one simply sites along the guides to insure that the rod is correctly assembled, before beginning to fish. However, with a spiral wrapped rod, t
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Ridge, Sure, you can easily extend the handle with no problem. In fact, you can extend any blank without an issue. The best way to extend the blank, is to use another blank on the outside of the butt section - overlapping the butt by at least 4 inches, and you really don't need to do anything else. In your case, if the size is an issue, I would take another piece of blank section, and
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Buzz, I have sewen up many rod socks. I have tried lots of different material and I personally like to use ripstop nylon the best. Typically a quality of about 420D. This is heavy enough to have a bit of body, so that it slips easily on the rods, but can still be easily folded or wrapped for storage. I typically sew on a pice of elastic that slips over the reel to hold the sock in place.
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Spence, I complement your choice of a blank in the use of a 9000 with the GL3 blank. The gl3 has a much softer and slower action than an IMX blank. I agree that for this use, the gl3 blank is great, but the IMX blank is not so great. On the other hand, the use of the IMX blank in the 9000 series is a great river jig rod. It is much faster and stiffer and has the tip sensitivity and bac
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Kerry is right. The main thing to check in a blank, is that it is "soft" enough at the tip, as well as having a slow enough action. Contrary to some of the posts, I have found that for the best dead sticking type blank, I agree with you in that I prefer a moderate or even slow action rod. By having a slower action rod with a bit lighter action, you will be able to visually see mor
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Matt, Do a bit of experimenting with the guide placement, size and location. One thing that I have found is that it seems to help with a spiral wrap is to offset the first guide a bit. By that I mean, that rather than having the first guide perfectly aligned with the reel, it seems to work a bit to twist the guide a bit - one way or the other. Do some testing with the guides, by letting
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Boss Rod
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Buzz, I know exactly what you are thinking. The St. Croix drift rod is an excellent choice. There are also a lot of salmon rods that have an 8-10 foot length, moderate action medium power with a line rating of 4-10 lbs, and a lure rating of 1/8th - 5/8th. Any of these rods will work great. I also agree with your assessment on the use of a MODERATE or even a slow action rod to be the o
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