For a rod of 10 feet or a bit more - I use the rule of 30 inches from the reel seat for the stripper. For a rod of 12 feet - I use the rule of 36 inches from the reel seat for the stripper. For rods of 6-8 feet, I typically use a distance of 19 inches from the reel seat to the stripper. For myself, it makes 0 sense to measure stripper distance from the butt of the rod. The distan
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Alan, Not a rod insert, but rather the bones of a large boat seat. I have used spar varnish to finish this wood, before adding the foam and upholstery and I couldn't be happier. I am using the spar varnish to protect the wood from going to pieces in the humid / wet conditions of being a seat that lives on the water. I believe that the finish will do a very good job of protecting t
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Gary, All of these blanks will work fine for the purpose. For myself, I use similar blanks for this purpose - but use a longer 6'6" blank for more casting distance. Take care
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Daryl, This is the method that I use, and it is very simple. About 10 wraps before getting to the end of the main wraps, I lay in the three trim bands and simply tape the long trim bends to the blank up the rod, and tape the lay in thread over the main wrap to hold them in place until you get enough of your main bands over wrapped on the trim thread. About two wraps after laying in thos
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If you have access to a lathe, and if you have a good three bearing steady rest, this system works very very well to take care of your issue: Go ahead and finish your grip to the way you want it finished. Then, chuck the grip into the head stock chuck with a full circle chuck. Clasp the end that needs to be bored into the 3 bearing steady rest. Then, take your bit of choice an
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That will work well Jim.
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A note pad is a handy thing to keep handy.
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Claude, It sounds like you are having Login issues. Are you using the same user name and the same password to log into the photo section, as you are using to log into the forum?
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Claude, -------------------------------- In preparation for uploading a file to the forum photos page, Use your file explorer to locate the picture that you will want to upload. Click on that file location, or file folder - if you have multiple pictures in that file folder so that you can scroll to the picture that you eventually want to upload to the photo section of the forum. Then, open u
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Claude, Go to the windows section of the forum. Log Into this section. Then click on the button that says - Upload photos Once that comes up, drag the file you want over to that button and press enter. Put the picture into the category that you wish. For the dryer - typically would be "equipment" catagory. Take care
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Claude, Here is a picture of a sully dryer: It looks like there is a pulley mounted n the motor shaft. Then, a pulley above the motor is connected via belt. That shaft goes through the vertical support and the chuck is attached to the thru shaft which is the upper shaft. Take care
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Michael, These are also very satisfactory brushes. I never clean a brush and use one brush for each mix of epoxy finish. The cost per brush is 10 cents, so with a single coat - which is normally what I put on a rod is 10 cents, or if a shorter rod with shorter butt wraps may be able to get two rods coated with one brush or 5 cents per rod for epoxy application. No cleaner, no fume
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Ditto on the use of a belt sander. I generally use a belt with about a 180 to 220 grit. The sander that I use is a 1x30 inch belt sander. I also use a tool to hold the guide on which I am dressing the foot. The tool is a short section of appropriate sized rod blank. I then use a section of machine thread with a flat head and of the size that fits nicely into the ring of
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Caude, Take pictures of the pieces that you have and post them. Essentially you have a motor, belt/s, stand and chucks. Lets figure it out.
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Ronald, I am left handed, and I always had to order left handed blanks to be completely happy with the blank. My hand simply does not get the best out of a right handed blank. Best wishes
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Sopm years ago, my wife and I went on an extended vacation for 6 weeks. During that time, I hired a fellow to remove the cottage cheese from the ceilings. As a result, before leaving we removed every single item from all of the walls in the entire house except the one room where we stashed everything. When we came home, we did significant redecorating and repainting of every wall in the house.
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Ed, Actually when my grand daughters were about 6 or 7, I made a pair of pine 5 foot ultra light rods for them. They didn't use them a lot but they had fun when they did. I had purchased the blanks from the Mudhole close out section for about $4 per blank. It kept me off the streets for a few minutes and put a smile on the girls faces. Actually, the oldest one is now expecting h
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I would think that blue main wrap with yellow and red trim would be great for such a rod. Best wishes
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El, I appreciate your thoughts. However, to put it simply, it doesn't make a lot of sense to build a rod for a 3.5 year old. Rather, go to one of the big box stores and buy a snoopy rod for her for a few $$ and move on. But, if you want to take this time to build a rod that will be suitable for her by the time she gets to 6 or +6, then go ahead and build a rod for her that she wi
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You could also pick up a different chuck, such as this one to take care of your issue:
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A couple of thoughts. If you have a rear grip, or butt cap that may be marked with chuck jaws, there is a very simple solution to the issue. Before putting the grip or butt cap in the dryer, simply take one, two or three #64 rubber bands and wrap it/them around the butt or butt cap of the rod. Then, when you put the rod in the chuck you are simply tightening the jaws on the rubber bands an
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Daryl, Your finds make sense. Water boils at 212 degrees at sea level. So you discovered that the point where the glue on the rod and reel seat softened at a temperature higher than 212. If would be interesting to see a graph of epoxy softening and the temperature at which changes happen.
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If you happen to have an extra calking gun, it will work in essentially the same way as the quick clamp and it works well indeed. The reason that I use titebond III is that it is much less expensive than epoxy. Titebond III uses water clean up. So, after I have drilled out the ring to match its spot on the blank, I will slip it on my arbor that I modify as needed and create a tape arbor
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Kevin Here is a picture of a rod bench and the control board that Barry Thomas built in 2013: Click on the "enlarge" to get a better look at the details of the board. Notice that he hinged the front part of the board and then connected a rod to the back part of the board that goes up to the underside of the bench where he mounted his pedal. Then, he used a lever arrangement
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Tom, In addition to your comment about the foot control board - a very good idea if you move along the rod as you work - the use of the sliding power wrapper obviates the need for the control board. But, one does have to have the additional width on the length of a rod bench to allow the wrapper to move about 4 feet in either direction. This movement will largely cover most rods being built
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Al, You have actually answered your own question. You indicated that when you have the rod built the rod is curving slightly to the right. Simply rotate the section or section that is causing the rod to bend slightly to the rod and reorient the guides and tip top so that everything is still in line. Best wishes.
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I built this some years ago and it has worked very well for me since then. The bed for my power wrapper had warped over years of use, so I decided to replace it with a metal channel. I found this 2x4x10 foot long aluminum channel at the steel yard for a few $$. I stopped with it on the way home at my buddies Machine shop and had him mill a disconnected slot down the length of the channel to
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Mark, I have built a lot of rods for some Canadian fishermen over the years. When they are going after some of the bigger fish- they have Flash lures that they use and they have decided to call this type of fishing with heavy flash lures - Target Fishing. I suppose that they target fish that they see on their depth finders with this flash lures. Take care
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Michael, Your comment is exactly the reason that I preferred not to use a tensioner on the thread spool. Roger
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Mark, This was a fish caught by a rod building client of mine who was fishing in Canada on Lake Winnipeg. This was his first outing with his new rod. I built a rod called a target rod that used the top 48 inches of the pac bay solid l action glass saltwater blank that comes from the factory at 72 inches. The grip was a 10 inch solid cork grip. The spinning reel that the client u
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