Mike, Whenever wrapping, unless you wear rubber gloves while doing so; will result in skin oil and bits of skin cells being left on the thread and wraps. It is a good idea to always go over the wraps with tape to pick up the oil and skin cells and junk th at might have been left on the wraps after wrapping. I make a point of doing this as each wrapped is finished. Then, if the rods sit
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Jeff, I assume that this is a spinning rod? With many very fast - light tiped rods; I find it necessary to place the first two or three guides from the tip at a spacing of about 3 /12 inches apart. i.e. 3 1/2, 7, 11 inches from the tip. By this time, you are likely past the extreme quick tip and can began to space out the guides. I just follow the taper of the blank - placing guides
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Bob, Drop me an e-mail at hflier@comcast.net Take care Roger
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Jason, For a light tipped rod, the 3 inch length is a tough call. For many rods, trying to fix the tip can pretty well ruin the action of the rod. For a medium or heavier action rod, it is not a big deal to fix the break. One tip that I might add for the repair of a very light tipped rod - say 4-5 in diameter, the use of correctly sized piano wire is a good fix. Whenever doing blank
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Actually, I found that the plastic jaw liners really didn't keep the chuck from slipping off the grips very well. I took off the jaw liners and simply used some contact adhesive to glue on a layer of cork over the jaws. The layer of cork on the jaws works much much bettr to hold the grips than the former plastic liner. Take care Roger
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Use rings of masking tape with about 1/8th inch gap between rings. There will be plenty of glue in the gap to take care of any issues with the bond. Take care REW
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JB, Thread is NOT a practical thing to use to hook a reel to a rod. Remember, y ou have storage issues, transport issues, broken reel issues. You NEVER want to permenantely hook a reel to a rod. I have built several of these rod styles, and after chatting with every client - who did NOT want to use any metal, rubber, chrome or other type locking rings all decided to use plastic tape to a
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Tim, I always spine a rod and mark the rod with the side having the spine. I then eye ball the rod to see if it is straight. If it has a hook or a crook anywhere, I will first build on the straight side of the rod - while keeping the spine of rod in mind. Most times I find that if there is a crook (slight or exagerated) the crook will often be on the same line as the spine. However,
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Thomas, I had the same issue and found the perfect solution. I was able to locate a 1/2 hp DC motor. It plugs into 110v AC, but then there is a control box on the end of the motor that converts it to 90 volts dc. In the center of the box, there is a dial that varies the speed from 0 - 3000 rpm. I use this motor on my lathe when I need to do finish handle work. I increase the rpm, until
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John, A couple of thoughts: 1. If possible, have a separate lathe for doing "dirty work" and another one for "clean work" i.e. if you are doing handle shping with flying cork dust - keep it in an area that is separate from the lathe that is used for rod wrapping. It is so tough to keep dust out of a guide wrapping area; if you are grinding cork in the same area
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Bill, Thanks very much for your help and suggestions. I will be going with one or more of your blanks. Thanks again. Roger
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Tommy, P.s. Another thing that I learned a long time ago, is to mount the intended reel on the rod. Thread the line through the guides and strip off 20 or 30 feet. Whiile keeping just enough tension on the line to keep the slack out of the line, but not so much as to put any flex in the rod - slowly reel in the line. I have found that to effect the most effective cast with minimal sla
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Tommy, With 12 lb test line, I think that the stripper guide is too small. I would go with a size 30 stripper at 20-22 inches from the reel seat. Most of the rods of this size, I use the following: 30, 16, 10, -- alconite standard spinning 8 low, spinning, 7 bridge, 7 fly guide and then as many 6 fly guides as necessary to finish the guides. If, using 12 lb line, you might w
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Josh, It is a pretty simple thing to do. In spite of the other posts, many folks like a well balanced rig. Many fishermen find that a well balanced rig - one that literally floats on thier hand - is much, much more important than the absolute lightest weight rig. If he will give you the weight of the reel and line - you can simply hang a reel on the blank in the expected location. Ta
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Bob, A good friend of mine that passed away a few yeas ago held the world record for sturgeon on 12 lb test line. This fish was caught in Yellow Lake, near Grantsburg Wi. The fish was 115 lbs. When he had the DNR check the fish, before releasing it; the DNR estimated the age of the fish at 125 years old. Always a good idea to release these senior fish that have survived the rigors for s
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Generally speaking you can simply measure the diameter of the tip and compare this tip to commercial blanks. This diameter will give you information that is good enough to figure the line weight. If the tip is heavy enough to carry a particular line weight; the rest of the rod will carry the line. Take care Roger
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Andrew, In addition to the largest size of the grip - it is important to figure the flare of the grip. i.e. a straight grip, flared larger, flared smaller, a power hump, a power dip, a small fore grip; a large fore grip, no fore grip, a split grip, a back grip that gets larger behind your hend; a grip that gets smaller behind your hand; etc. A very very good idea is to have about 10-30 rods
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Bob, We are fishing at Lake of the Woods in Canada. Most of the fish run about 20-25 lbs, but there are some fish that will run 50-60 lbs. Thanks much Roger
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I need to build a 7 foot rod for catching 30-50 lb sturgeon. Any thoughts on a relatively inexpensive blank for this application? thanks much Roger
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I was just over at Cabelas and looked at and handled several of the Steeze rods. I do agree that they seem to be a very nice, light rod. However, I don't know that there is a significant advantage in the assembly or finish of these rods compared to other high end rods. One thing that I did notice, was the very very very noticable drop in the quality of cork in many of the production rods
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I first use an air compressor to blow out any reside that might be on the inside of the blank. Then, I simply use a twisted paper towel with solvent to clean both the inside and outside of the blanks, before starting to do any guide wrapping. There is often dust or debris on the inside of the blank as a result of glue up and handle turning. I like to keep all of the dust and debris separa
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I agree, With the price, the quality should be out of this world. No failure of any kind is really acceptable at this price. However, it would be interesting to get ones hand on one of these blanks and build a rod yourself, and compare it to a similar rod on one of the more conventional high end blanks. Roger
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Thanks much for the advice on aluminum sources. I was looking for a source for a piece of aluminum to be used as a replacement base for my power wrapper. My current wood base has become warped, and I wanted to replace it with aluminum. After the advice received on the board; I paid a viist to several local scrap yards. I found a perfect piece of 5x2 inch aluminum channel, which I had cu
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Thanks for all of the feed back. It is interesting to note that the general conclusion is that this rod is a very very high quality factory rod. It is as good or perhaps better then most of the rods in the field. It is nice to see factories continually pushing the envelope in performance. Thanks again. Roger
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Any thoughts or personal experience with the Diawa Steeze rod and its associated blank. I understand that it is a properitary process used in Japan to make these blanks? Any source for these blanks, and any experience with weight or blank characteristics? Thanks much Roger
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Tom, Common sense and a bit of paitence easily dictates guide placement. Lets say that you start with a bare blank with the handle in place - ready to place the guides. Gather a bunch of strips of narrow tape to mark the blank. Starting from the tip -= flex the rod. At the spot where the rod flexes first =- place the first guide. Then, divide the distance from that spot to the t
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Why use the Renzitti for cork turning? Why not use a lathe that has the power and set up to take care of this with no problem. Otherwise, use a 1/3 or 1/2 hp electric motor to spin the rod. Several folks that I know - including myself use either 1750 rpm or 3600 rpm 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 hp motors to spin their blanks when turning handles on the blank. I use a 1/2 hp 3600 rpm buffer moto
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Mark, Right on. I have pulled several sewing machine motors apart - as is commonly found on the pac bay wrapper, and did exactly what you described. It is a bit of a tough go, and it takes great care to do the wire extension, and packing so that you don't have any shorts or problems with the motor. However, if you take your time - have the skills and soldering iron to to the job correct
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Menards -- (home building supply center in the midwest) -- carries tubs of 30 minute as well as 1 hour epoxy that work very well for all of your rod building needs. For these large tubs, each part a and part b is in an 8 oz tub. The price for this total weight of 16 ozs is under $10. The epoxy that has a set time of 30 minutes has a nice working time of about 7 minutes (i.e,. it stays nic
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Billy, Your 2nd rod is virtually identical to the shape of the fore and butt grips. As your picture shows, very comfortable for the hand. I had never thought about the idea of shortning the non threaded side of the NPS reel seat. A great idea. That would also make the grip larger and more comfortable. I have built the NPS reel seat both ways. i.e. with the threads to the front of th
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