Alex, With words like "up to", you could sell a glass blank under the label and not be lying. Also, is that percentage by volume, or percentage by weight. It would have to be by volume, as a blank with that much carbon wouldn't have much holding it together. Personally, I would write it off as marketing hype. Joe
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Matt, Check Netcraft under metal reel seats. You may need to see if you can find a graphite insert to fit. Joe
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I have the EVA split grips from Batson on a few of my bass rods, and I really like it. It's much firmer than EVA grips I've used in the past, and makes for a soft, comfortable grip in my opinion.
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Andrew, I haven't tried it, but you could probably use the backing paper from a book of stamps or sticker sheets to make it easier to pull up. Regardless of what you stick it to fold both ends over about 1/4 inch and you have handles to maneuver your decal that can be trimmed off and not leave finger prints when you place it on the blank. Joe
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This year, there are 5 casting rods that were almost always in the boat. My 14' boat restricts my rods to being under 7', as longer rods get in my way when running the gas motor. 1. 6'6" 1/16-5/16 F Spin Jig blank weightless plastics and light twitch baits 2. 6'10" 1/8-1/2 XF Spin Bass Swimming grubs, 1/8 oz buzz baits, and finesse 3. 6'10" 3/16-5/8 XF Spin Bass light wormi
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Tom, I should have been a bit more careful with my wording. The angle between the guides certainly changes depending on the amount of flex in the rod. Edit: I think you got the idea of my post. Also, thanks for the tid bit on a few spacing methods. It is now in better perspective for me. Joe
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Alex, It is accomplished by using the tip as the first guide. Take a look at the enlarged chart on Mud Hole's site. It appears to me that it is based on approximating a rod as having a butt that remains straight and then has a circular arc at the top. They chose some point to be the center of this arc, which happens to be directly below the top when the rod is flexed to 90 degrees. So, t
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Angular distribution of the guides. The entire point of the chart is to place the guides so they have the same angle between them when the rod under load. Joe
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Joe and Alex, After looking at the Mudhole chart, I think the idea is to keep the angle between the guides the same. It looks as though you flex your rod to 90 degrees, and then place the guides where lines from some arbitrary radius of curvature intersect your blank. This will cause the line to make the same change in direction at each guide. I'm sure it works just like any spacing that us
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Scott and Alex, The friction between the guides and rings when casting is very small. Friction requires a force perpendicular to the contact surface, and if you think about it, that force should be pretty small when casting. The place that energy can be robbed from the line when casting is when the line is getting choked down, but I personally haven't found there to be much of an issue there
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Bill Stevens Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And do not pass up the opportunity use all the > same size micro for on top builds - you will soon > discover a big surprise. Bill, it is a very pleasant surprise indeed. Joe
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David, I use a double foot six, single foot 5, and then single foot 3s to the tip. This set of guides works well in both an on top and spiral configuration. Especially when you don't know what size reel is going on the rod. The extra height of the df 6 works well with most bass sized round reels and is fine with low profile reels as well. Joe
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Greg, Take a look at the article above for info on static guide placement. Follow the instructions, and you will know that any breakage did not come from the guide spacing. When it comes to spiral wrapping, the method I use, more or less, is to place my guides as outlined in the article above. Then I leave the guide closest to the reel on top. The next one goes at 90 degrees, and all
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Wayne, Batson makes woven graphite tubing in straight and tapered pieces that can be built up easily by using their foam bushings and arbors. The tapered foregrip pieces can be used to make a nice split grip. There were a couple of articles about using these by Steve Gardner in Rodmaker, but he makes his own bushings to eliminate the need for the foam arbors. Check Volumes 10 #4 and 11 #1
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Ken, Sorry for moving off topic a bit, I do see that you are talking spinning reels now. That certainly is an interesting result. Joe
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Ken, Inertia is a BAD thing for casting reels. That would be the problem you are running into. With the extra line capacity comes extra mass that needs to be started, and that robs energy from your cast. For a cylindrical distribution of mass, the moment of inertia varies directly with the mass, and an depends on the square of the radius to the mass. It is for this reason that I contend
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Joe, I haven't built up any MHX's yet, but I know the Batson RX8+S823 makes a very nice shakey head and finesse worming rod. Based on the specs of the MHX lineup, the SB-812 is the most comparable. For the finesse tactics, I like a rod that has a nice limber tip for casting and enough backbone to handle the fish once they are on. The extra fast blanks do a good job at giving you this combin
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Jay, Swampland's split grips are great, even though the rear section is a tad shorter than I would prefer (and probably longer than others would like), they are still very serviceable. If the ID of Swampland's grips is larger than you need, check with Utmost, as Batson offers a very similar product with 0.250" ID that I've used as well. You just need to order the grip pieces and butt
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Rob, If I recall from a past discussion where people were talking about stripping blanks and the like, the weight difference was on the order of 5%. Joe
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Tom and Jason, I'm sure you may have thought about this, but my naive solution for a 'CCS Scale' would be to use a set of long coil springs (the type that collapse all the way down on themselves) with different spring constants. They can typically be deflected a sizable distance while still remaining very linear in the force it takes to deflect them. Thus with a trip to the hardware store, a
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Leigh, Are you using spinning gear or casting gear? How does the casting distance compare between the two rods if you tie on a chunk of lead that loads both blanks pretty well? Do you need to cast this lure further than you are presently able? If so, have you tried a dab of super glue at the head of the plastic to keep it from sliding down the hook? I use casting gear most of the tim
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Vern, Volume 11 Issue 2 Joe
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Jeff, It isn't cheating, it is just another option. I've only done one ribbon wrap, and they can turn out quite well. You should take a look at the Rod Maker article on ribbon wrapping. It has a couple tips and tricks that make it very easy to work with the ribbon. Joe
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Jay, Batson has some, and I've used them on a few casting rods. They are very firm and quite nice. Joe
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Joe, I'll echo Scott's remarks. I have a CB66M that I built to throw Strike King Series 1&3, and Big O type cranks. It works well enough for the fish on my waters, but is a bit underpowered (I usually choose a blank that is a little lower powered than most choose for a particular application). The 1/4-5/8 oz. lure weight on these blanks is too high. The cranks that the manufacturers ca
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Jay, I'll second the 822.5. The RX7 version can be had for a very fair price, and should be a very solid performer. If you go into your profile and unhide your email, I'll send you some more info. Joe
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My 822.5 is set up as a casting rod, and I've used to to throw small 3" grubs on a 1/16 oz. jig head out to around 50' and unweighted Zoom Flukes (the little ones) about the same distance. Keep in mind that is with a casting reel. Rigged as a spinning rod, you should be able to get a bit more, as most finesse worms have a bit more plastic than a grub, and don't have to deal with the inerti
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Nathan Parker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- We get bass (not to > mention the wipers) up to 5/6 lbs. around here > often enough that I want all the hooksetting power > I can get with as light a tip as I can get away > with. I would give the ISB 822.5 a good hard look in your case. It has a very soft tip with plenty of backbone, and you don't
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Scott, The RX7 IMB 783 is worth a look as well. I built mine for tossing 3/8-1/2oz. spinnerbaits for pike in rivers, but I like it for my 1/4oz.+ bass SBs as well. As far as XF actions and spinnerbaits are concerned. I like to toss SBs on my RX8+ 823 as well, but if I may need to move the fish, the IMB 783 will get the nod. The softer tip that the 823 has is great for flicking the smaller
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Roger, I have a Browning ultralite rod that I picked up 3 years ago. It has stainless guides. It's only been fished 2 of the years that I've had it (as I spent 1 of those years living out of state). I would put a reasonable estimate of about 100 hours fishing time with this rod, as I don't spend a lot of time fishing for crappie and panfish, only the occasional couple hours here or there.
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