They work great, casting actual A-rigs is more problematic than single baits of the same weight since the aerodynamics of the rig are so poor, but with my rod I have been able to cast rigs up to 5oz for tremendous distance with very little effort. It’s hard for me to consider any 7 oz bass fishing rod light, but everybody who picks it up comments how light and balanced it is for the power it ha
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Yes you can use 3 guides with a 4.5 tip just fine. My favorite micro tip is the #4 Kigan, it has the best brace design with the braces welded onto the side of the tube so they can’t catch the line on the backside of the tube. They also have the best system to hold the ring in, I have never had a ring pop out of a Kigan tip.
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Now if we could just get some SK2 seats………………….
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I like to do mine with a foam core carbon skinned split grip. That way you can shape the ends to have a nice smooth taper going down to the blank, I find these by far the most comfortable spinning seat possible.
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Yes. I usually don’t use any more microguides than I would use with conventional guides, on a 7’6” rod 9 or 10 is probably plenty. It is not the end of the world for the line to touch the blank when you are doing a static test, you will find that in reality the tip will end up straightening out and most of the bend will be deeper in the blank anyway.
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You have to be very careful with the heat gun, you can destroy a blank in a second if you are not careful.
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It shouldn’t be a problem, no matter how long you leave it in the water it is never getting hotter than 212° or so. The temp used to cure the resin in the prepeg is signifantly higher.
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I use the boiling water method, and have done many that way, but it takes a lot more than just a quick submersion in hot water. I use a turkey fryer since the pot is deep enough to get the reel seat under the water, and the burner has enough power to quickly get such a big pot of water boiling. I have had to let the rod boil in the water for up to an hour, but it always eventually comes off.
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They seem to work OK but they are a nightmare to apply finish, you have to come at a steep angle with the brush.
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I believe that using a level on the blank is not the way to go. Use a level to get the lathe bed level, and then use a height gage of some kind to make sure that the centerline of the rod is the same height from the lathe bed the entire length of the rod. you can make a height gage with a piece of wood and a piece of wire, bend the wire until it is lined up with the centerline of the blank at the
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It is probably better to get the next larger check. These are pretty small and you would only be able to ream them if they were already glued onto the reel seat. If there is a slight gap between the blank and check just put a small wrap in front of it and seal it up with some thread finish.
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Myself I gave up on anything but metallic thread. You save a step and a chance for things to go wrong by not having to mess with color preserver, and the colors are much brighter and more vibrant than any nylon or polyester thread. Of course I like bright vibrant colors, some people like dark subtle colors so they would prefer something else. Sulky and Fish Hawk both make excellent metallic th
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Trimmed to 8’ the butt diameter is .835. A size 17 reel seat will just fit, you may have to do a little reaming.
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I got 2 of the T1 blanks and have started building on them. These are seriously beastly blanks………
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I don’t think Fuji Match guides are readily available in the US, but the PacBay versions are. I have used the PacBay M guides with Alconite plenty of times and they work great together. You could always try the MicroWave guide, it is designed for fishing very much like what you are doing. It is 40mm from the foot to the center of the rings, and I designed the frame to be quite beefy for salt
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The best thing you could do for performance would be to get rid of the #6 runner guides and go to the smallest microguide you can get, but you are right that with your leader situation it is probably not the way to go. You may want to try a #5 guide, I use them for my guys who won’t buy into smaller is better. You get a pretty good weight savings over the #6 but still have a pretty big opening.
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What you need are high frame M series guides, I have had excellent results using size 16 M guides both in Minima and ceramic styles. The first thing you need to do is get rid of the #6 guides, replacing them with light guides out by the tip will make much more difference than changing the first guide. Another thing to keep in mind if you are trying to build as light as possible is that spinni
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Something I actually have to think about all the time fishing tournaments as a co-angler. I want to be able to cover the most possible techniques with the least number of rods.
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MB843 MB844 7’6” flipping stick 843 popping or crankbait 6’8”-6’10” extra fast spinning
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What are you using for guides? You can improve the performance of any rod by eliminating any excess guide weight. You will still be limited by the ultimate performance limit of the blank, but remember every gram you add to the blank reduces its performance so do everything you can to reduce it as little as possible.
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I have a 2 piece 10ft float n fly rod that is kind of close to what you are building. I used Minima guides and the tip section has 10 #4 minima guides. I used the Minima M series guides for transitions to get the extra height relative to ring size, this one starts with a #20 but I have started using a #16 and #3 running guides and found even better performance.
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Why use #8 running guides on a rod with only 10-12lb line? Even if you have knots to pass or are uncomfortable with the #3 or #4 guides we are using I would think that you could get away with #6 single foot guides on that rod. I haven’t weighed guides that big much but I will bet that 12 #6 guides will weigh less than half of what 8 #8 guides weigh, and as always anything you can do to reduce u
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That is actually pretty common, if you ask the dealer to check fit a reel seat, size winding checks or fit something else. It is a nice service that the dealer provides, if you didn’t request anything like that it is possible they test fitted the blank for another customer, the sale fell through and they put it back into stock. Most dealers wouldn’t see this as a big deal since nearly every
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At this point since it is for a friend the best way to go would be to completely strip it down and build it back better than it was before. I have done many rods that way for friends, and when I build them back with modern techniques like split grip and microguides they end up amazed at the difference it makes on a blank that they already knew the characteristics of. You could get an inexpensive
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Throw 4 Alabama rigs and have 20 baits in the water at once, how would you explain it to the ranger if you exceeded your limit on a single cast…….
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Northfork changed their relative number system with power numbers going all the way up to 9. Their 5 power may be less powerful than a 3 power that we are used to.
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Yes normal to the blank means perpendicular. I haven’t used the trick of putting soap in the water I use with the scotchbrite, I will have to try it.
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It is true that catching fish on these is not automatic. Last weekend in a tournament I was able to catch fish on the rig in a ditch running through a large flat, on tournament morning the fish had moved up on the flat and I couldn’t catch them on the rig. The water was so shallow that to keep the rig off the bottom I had to reel so fast they weren’t interested, we caught our fish on shallow
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Since I prefer the look of bare unfinished graphite, I get more aggressive and remove all of the old epoxy and finish and start fresh. The best tool I have found for scraping the old finish off is one of the small utility knives that are designed so that you snap off about a quarter of an inch of the blade as you use it and the tip gets dull. When you extend the blade all the way out you have a
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I have been using these for awhile and had a triple last Friday in prefishing. The rod I have been using works well but the blank is discontinued. It is an ATC V PV804, this is the same blank I use for deep crankbaits. It has a very slow taper and is small diameter and thick walled for toughness, I use a long 13.5in handle which makes it easy to lob cast and hold the butt against my body while
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