For moderate sized wood turnings it is nice to be able to start at 500 or so rpm. for sanding small objects, it is nice to be able to do 2500 or a few more rpm. You can just do everything at 866, but it will be overall a better setup if you go to the trouble of fitting it with step pulleys.
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One good thing about Flex-coat is that they do not change the formulation every 6 months. I started with Flex-coat. I read all the posts and adds about all the new miracle finishes. I would try one. It would not work right. Then I would read that the "problems were fixed" and they had changed the formulation. Sucker that I am I would try it again. It was like having to learn a wh
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I have two 4 wt rods that I used single foot titanium guides all the way up on. Would not have them any other way. They do help casting with a 4 wt and they are as light or almost as light as snake guides and that awful wire loop top that weighs a young ton by itself. I would suggest trying a 8.5', 4 wt in maybe a GL3 or the St. Croix Avid line. My favorite way to save a little weight and m
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I have no definitive data. but I have used recoil, cerment, and ti-sic. The thin wire recoils sure look and feel like they are lighter. The recoil tops with the thin wire and aluminum tube are very light (ugly too). The Sic TI guides are also pretty light in the smaller sizes. I think the larger bearing area of the ceramic ringed guides and the great slickness of the surface probably does gi
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I will be a bit smart assed. I go about it almost the same way as I do for a fly rod that does have "specifications" written on it. I try it with a line and go up or down until it feels right for what I want to do with it. If I don't right away get a good fit that makes sense I use the common cents system on the rod and start anew.
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I am a fan of All Star blanks. I did get several from Andy last year. I would reccomend getting some while he still has them avaliable.
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No need. If you have a nice, tight fit with the cork and do the hook keeper, butt wrap up aginst the cork it will be fine. The winding check does make it a lot easier to get a neat transition between the epoxy and the cork. Without it you have the problem of how to keep the epoxy off the cork or how much of the cork to cover. I have built rods both ways. I like the winding check better, but
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I put down a layer of flex coat. Sanded it with 400 grit. Wrote my inscription on it with acrylic ink. Can I just brush a coat of Flex-coat over it after it dries, or do I need some sort of intermediate coating over the ink to keep it from running under the flex-coat?
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I have an older English bamboo rod with what you refer to as the English pattern guides, they hang on a "bridge". They are pretty much the most worthless kind of guides I have ever seen performance wise. And they are very small in diameter. I sure don't see them as a "better" choice for soft rods.
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Yeah, I think that would be a bad idea. You will end up with a rod that is short and still heavy. I would treat it like an antique, leave it original, and buy one of the lamiglas s glass blanks in the length I wanted if I wanted to fish a glass rod. Or one of the inexpensive graphite blanks which still make fine rods. Of course you can just tape a reel on it where the reel would be mounted
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Tom above defined what a 4 wt or 8 wt line means. The line weights are an agreed on standard by the manufacturers. Basically an 8 wt rod means the manufacturer of that rod or blank thinks that it is a good power blank to use a 8 wt line on. But as said, that is a subjective rating on the part of the manufacturer. Subjective as it is, that is what most. as in almost all, fly fisherman go wi
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McMaster Carr is certainly good. But if you are on a budget, check ENCO also. Owned by MC, I think, but carry imported tools at a much lower price than the good stuff at MC. Almost all Sears lathes are #2 morse taper and sears carries accessories. You can get a Jacobs chuck on a threaded shaft that has the #2 taper on it. Penn State is also a good place for lower cost accessories. And Ha
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It should repair okay. As you probably are aware, the strength of the glue is probably you least concern. Most epoxies and wood glues will be strong enough to hold. The most important thing is to get the peice to fit back in correctly and to work out a way to clamp everything so that it is perfectly flush. And to find all the little chips and splinters that you can. I would test fit and I mi
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Diawi Black gold? Mid priced Shimano symmetry? Penn ? What I rember about the 300's in the different sizes (heck, I still use a 408 and a 306 sometimes) is a teardown and rebuild every year, a bail that often does not work, leaks grease out of every bushing, cranks like a corn sheller, wraps line around the shaft, and a scratchy drag.
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I think one reason for keeping the first guide close to the top is to minimize the risk of breaking the rod at the top if it is inadvertley angled past 90 degrees away from the load and stressed.
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I am awful new to the area of spinning rods but I am dealing with this right now. I am wrapping a 8.5 ft spinning rod. It is a salt water rod and I started with a 30. I am not sure what else I have on it but once I got the line down to the blank I did go with "an awful lot of running guides". I think I got it to the blank with 4 guides and then have running guides every 8 or 9"
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I have done it both ways and do not notice any real improvement in going to the larger stripper guide. Lefty can generate a lot more distance than me anyway so what helps him may not help me as much. I think the 16 is too big for that application. What does seem to help is getting the line more away from the rod. So maybe a high frame 10 or 12. I use the choke guide for most of my rods. I d
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I have tried Gorilla glue. I just don't like the stuff. Yet I have found a few applications where it would do a job that I could not find anything else to do. But as a wood glue it is woefully weak. And as an assembly glue it is just a super pain to work with. I try to keep a little bottle of it for when I can't find anything else that will work, but it generally goes bad in the bottl
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Yeah, go with the CC system. And it is a big help even on rods that are rated by the manf. I was looking for a 7 wt and built a Diamondback 6/7 blank. It felt awful soft and actually checked out to a 5 when I did the CC system. Wasted a lot of cork and time on that rod. Now I check them first.
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You did not say if it is to be a fly rod or a spinning rod? Lamiglas makes some nice, soft, light multipiece fiberglas fly blanks. St. Croix makes a couple of 4 or 5 piece spinning blanks.
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One thing you can do with a belt sander is to burn the tool rather quickly unless you have a light touch and know what you are doing. And the angles and the shape that the tools are ground to have a big effect on how they work. I too use the Oneway jig mentioned by Mike. But it is pretty expensive when you get all of the attachments. It cost about 180 to buy a slow speed grinder with 2 white
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I find lately that when I am building a heavy use rod for mystelf I sometimes sit down and go through all the reel seat options and still choose a fuji graphite seat. I generally just use the whole thing. I like making inserts, but I usually decide that the little 2 inch piece of wood or cork that shows is not worth disrupting the strength and ease of use of the solid graphite seat. On light f
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Think about the bass bug being 6" closer or further from your right ear. I go with the 9'. I acutally built a 8.5' six weight and it just sits in the drawer. For me it was just too much work trying to push heavy flies with a light line and trying to make it up on velocity. I wanted a little more punch too. I now fish with a 9', 7wt. for small flies and bugs. I go to a 9 wt if I a
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Because it works great. Thats why.
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Hi Folks. Thanks for all the good answers. The link to Ricks rods showing the Phillipson seat was expecially nice. I actually have a couple of small diameter, thinn metal alum sliding seats I bought from someone on this forum in the buy/sell section. But they are skinny and flimsy and I did not want to use them. I guess I was looking for a "magic" solution. After trying the slidin
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Yeah, it will probably work to cut it into rings and glue it back together. But not well. There is little stength glueing end grain to end grain and the joints are all gonna show pretty markedly. I would get a long bit and just try drilling it by hand. Get it lined up as best you can and go. A drill press that you could mount a center on to hold the other end would help. But you might be ab
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I am building a couple of light spinning rods for my use. I really like to be able to move the location of the reel seat. I just finished a rod and used Andy's hard burl cork and graphite slip rings over it. Thought I was all set. I thought with the hard cork it would all lock down tight. But the first time I actually caught a fish I found out. The handle bends under the cork (which I like
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I have a few of the Fisch bits (and some called Vortex that may be the same) from the local Woodcraft and these things are so sharp you can not pick them up and put them in the drill without feeling like you are cut. But they do have a tendency to load up with shavings when drilling soft wood fast, so you have to clear them fairly often.
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It is real simple. Just go to Sears and buy an air compressor. Get either the vertical or the horizontal with a medium sized tank. Good for everything. I use mine for painting, cleaning, blowing up tires, etc. I use an air impact wrench for driving lagbolts in woodworking, etc. Got a little air grinder if I need to cut off a bolt or something. Just a good tool to have. Unless you are into
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