The thin cork should hold up just fine as arbor material under the reel seat pieces.
Forum: rodboard

The original 5’6” -7’ blanks in the CRB color series are blanks I recall seeing offered by at least one other vendor years ago with specs that matched across the board. I suspect they started as a line produced by one of the manufacturers on the left that was intended to be used as a house line of entry level general purpose blanks. However over the years the CRB line has expanded and includes mu
Forum: rodboard

The Rod Geeks blanks are effectively St. Croix blanks. In this case the carbon 4 series would be a slight upgrade in material from SCIII to SCIV. I doubt you will find anything closer. This is the direction I would go for your friend. I fish older RX8+ Rainshadows in the 6'10" length with extra fast actions, and they were/are dynamite blanks, but I haven't bought one since they swi
Forum: rodboard

Hi Michael, It's been a few days, but I now have some time to respond. You asked: But, one can measure an overall resonant frequency of a rod blank based on its hardness and create a relative measurement that can be compared across the board with other blanks producing a useful result to use. How do you do this, Joe? The answer, it that it is not simple. The best measurement do do w
Forum: rodboard

Their current catalog shows hoods with both designs. I suspect that they source their seats from a couple different suppliers, and that is reflected in the hood design. I've used their standard pipe-style spinning seats, and trigger seats in the past. Those seats have hoods with the round cutouts. It seems that the images of the skeleton seats in the catalog use the oval cutout hoods. Try on
Forum: rodboard

Michael, I’ll come back to your question, but it may be a couple days out. I have a bit of work to catch up on over the next 24 hours. When I get a chance I’ll elaborate more on your specific question.
Forum: rodboard

Kent, nothing wrong with the way you select your blanks. I like it, and should we ever meet in person, I would love to see you go to work on a bunch of blanks. At the end of the day, you are searching for the blanks with the highest resonant frequencies in both the longitudinal and transverse vibrational modes, as well as the rods that damp vibrations the quickest which means they have the lowe
Forum: rodboard

Todd Andrizzi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Joe Vanoffsen...that's some deep s&%@. Too deep > for me. I made a comment earlier about paint on a > rod. I said I can grasp that a material totally > covering the entire blank could decrease > sensitivity because the material is between the > blank and the users hand. I was told, no...it
Forum: rodboard

It looks like it's time for a brief physics lesson. It's the inertia of a rod that matters. I'm sure you all have heard the statement of Newton's first law. "An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by a non-zero force." The way I teach it is that things don't change unless you kick them. It's very colloquial,
Forum: rodboard

The NGC layout would typically call for a 30mm Y frame guide for the butt guide when using a size 35 reel. Making that change would require changing all of the guides in the reduction train, however. I'm not surprised that the 25 lands out there a little further. Given that you are using limp braid, you can easily get by with pulling your choke guide and reduction train back a few inches until
Forum: rodboard

I let gravity help me out. I use a loop of line with a small bullet weight (1/16-1/8 oz) to use as a plumb bob for the tip top. When looped through the tip top and centered, the weight will pull the ring to the bottom of the rod, if the fit is not too snug. For a spinning rod or guides on top casting rod, I'll take the rotor and handle off of a spinning reel. When the reel is attached and p
Forum: rodboard

Learn how to do a proper static test. It requires one line tied directly to the tip top in order to load the blank, and another line attached to the reel with a weight to keep some tension on the line. The technique is not difficult to learn, and what I use to place all guides on a casting rod and the running guides on a spinning rod. If you start at the tip and work backwards, the guide
Forum: rodboard

ProKote is known to take longer to cure than some other brands on the market, but as long as the temp in the room is over 70F, it should not be wet after 8 hours. If it is, you either accidentally grabbed the same bottle twice when measuring your epoxy or you did not mix long enough. You need to mix for at least 2 minutes. One trick that I use is to turn on some music. Most songs last about 3
Forum: rodboard

The EVA shims from Batson work well. I always use a short piece of foam arbor next to the reel seat to tube joint with tube based handles regardless of whether the connecting shim is EVA or aluminum. The arbor prevents the flex, and the EVA shim provides a forgiving connection. Any modifications can be made using a drill and sand paper.
Forum: rodboard

It depends on how you fish those lures. I generally point my boat in the direction of the target, cast, and work the lure with the rod to the side perpendicular to the direction that I cast. In this case, the rod loads on the side. It doesn't matter whether the guides are on the top or bottom, some torque is still there. If you fish by pointing the rod at those lures and work them by snapping
Forum: rodboard

Is it close enough to a significant length measurement from the butt of the rod or top of the grip that you could wrap a measurement marker in the neighborhood and possibly place a decal nearby to finish hiding the blemish?
Forum: rodboard

I use the old Duplicator from Backlash Tools which shares a similar design. It's great for comparing blanks/rods side by side, performing static tests, and CCS measurements. I would recommend mounting it to a board that will span the gap between a pair of studs, as you can generate some significant torque with more powerful rods. I was fortunate to find a short wall with studs spaced just
Forum: rodboard

The smallest lightest guides that stand up to the fishing application (and abuse depending on the angler/application) and also put the ring in the right location relative to the reel and the blank while passing the line and any required connections. The same can be said for guides on any type of rod.
Forum: rodboard

The 14 mm should work. The arbors tend to come in slightly under the stated diameter. If not a light sanding will get the job done. Edit: I see they may be out at Mud Hole. Those arbors are a PacBay product so another vendor may have them. Utmost Enterprises carries a lot of PacBay items and may be worth a call.
Forum: rodboard

I think you have 2 options. 1. Slightly over ream the cork so that it slides past its landing spot. Add the arbors and then slide things into place from the front and rear. (Definitely use a long cure epoxy, Rod Bond or something with an hour or two cure time.) 2. Install the cork. Install a foam arbor in the seat and ream to fit its final destination. I would probably go with option
Forum: rodboard

Mark, My wire chuck with a magnetic slip clutch works great. It will grab anything I need blank or grip wise. Changing the tension isn't as simple as adjusting a single screw, but is as simple as swapping out a shim. I'm kind of fond of my little finishing and drying motor set up now, especially after I took Roger's advice and dug out a couple diodes and added into the mix to drop the RPMs
Forum: rodboard

Derick, I now have some time to elaborate on my recommendation. The senko is not a light lure. A 5" senko weighs in at 3/8oz on its own. Adding a hook and 1/4oz of lead pushes it over 5/8oz. Casting a lure of that weight with a lower power rod will have the angler resorting to lob style casts, which are fine for open water. If you friend wants to cast into tight spaces, and or skip cast
Forum: rodboard

That ISJ783 would be just about perfect.
Forum: rodboard

It's a great chuck. I really like mine as well. Fuji's was a clever design when it was released. It seems the CRB line borrowed pretty heavily from Fuji's design cues.
Forum: rodboard

Whether a larger reel seat is right or wrong for a particular build is up to the fisherman and builder. For me, the move to the larger OD meant that I could fish bass spinning rods without pain shooting up my forearm, something that stared in my early 20s. This is one of those things that falls in line with spiral wraps, micro guides, and other things that are beneficial to rod building in some
Forum: rodboard

Kent, what hook size and type are you using? How long are your swim baits? Up here I fish super flukes, flukes, and super fluke jr.s on 2/0-3/0 EWG hooks rigged Tex-posed by pushing the hook through laying th point along the back of the lure and skin hooking the tip. I have no issues fishing them on drop shot rods and 6 lb mono. You should be able to do something similar with those baits. I
Forum: rodboard

Let’s play 3 degrees of MVT since I’m yet to use an MVT in a build. My G2 is behind a PacBay GB16C exposed seat which is virtually identical to the Forecast version of the seat, externally. I’ve used that style from both of those as well as AmTak and Fuji interchangeably depending on what is available from the vendor I’m using at the time. Batson recommends the same trim ring for the Forecast ex
Forum: rodboard

Russ, for the best prices on Batson stuff, always check in with Utmost Enterprises. It's usually worth the call or email for a quote. If their price isn't better than Get Bit, I doubt you'll find better.
Forum: rodboard

Kent, I would be inclined to think that angler was just a victim of circumstances and the blank broke as a result of high sticking that the angler had a limited ability to control. Clearly he didn't high stick the rod intentionally, but being confined to the kayak limited his ability to lower the rod enough to prevent the eventual outcome when the fish dove under the boat. When the blank failed
Forum: rodboard

A good blank is a good blank regardless of when it was manufactured. If the action and power are right, I would not hesitate to use a glass or graphite blank of any vintage for a build. I have one cranking rod built on a late 60's vintage Lamiglas 6702. The blank predates even myself by a good bit. I wish I had a good local source to pull on some old blanks to see what is out there. Mark,
Forum: rodboard