Don't buy a manufacturers "set". Call a sponser and get the clerk to pick out a "set" that works from their individual stock. Sets don't seem to have caught up with modern thinking on guide sizing. All the sponsers are probably good. I personally do busisness with Custom Tackle and have many times just called and told them to pick out all of the stuff in the cheapest practi
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I sure as heck can't cast a 11.5 foot 6 wt single handed very long. you are gonna need 2 hands on it somehow. I think you want a high frame stripper and I would try the choker guide setup. I like the Alconites or the titanium SIC depending upon how much money you need to sequester in guides.
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I think it is worth making them adjustable. I did and I am glad. Once I got the setup to cut and drill the parts it was not a problem to make several supports at once. You are gonna use that thing for a long time so I would put the time in up front.
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I am not a fan of metallic thread on a fly rod. And aside from looks, I don't trust metallic wraps to hold single foot guides fly guides either. I have looked at a lot of fairly high end fly rods and don't see much metallic used. When I do my own rods I don't use CP either. I do use NCP for the trim wraps. The fly fishing community is pretty conservative and most rod manufactures go understa
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It is pretty easy to split a figured wood insert by drilling or reaming.
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Winston does sell blanks.
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Try casting a 9', 8 wt fiberglass rod 100 feet for saltwater fishing for a couple of hours. Fiberglass has a niche in small stream rods with a lot of bend and heavy enough to make the rod bend when you wave it. Some people like that. Grafite rods are lighter and more responsive across the board than fiberglass.
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I sure do not consider the 3 jaw chuck a complete waste of money. Best all around invention ever for the lathe. Sure, I have to turn the blank round first to start with a square blank. But after that, the self centering feature of the 3 jaw is wonderful. I know, there are self centering 4 jaw chucks too. But the bulk of the lathe chucks sold are 3 jaw for a reason. It works! I know there i
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Rons rods, Clarks Classic Fly Rod Forum. Check out the links to fishingBanjoes site. 2 good souces of information. Lots of information posted. Cost from a modern maker depends upon his reputation. Good rods for 700, same maker will be selling them for 1500 after he gets enough name recognition. I would say 700 - 1000 is a good price. Beware the cheaper new imported bamboo rods. Some of th
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Fuji makes tops that are titanium framed and SIC insert. I think they make a titanium framed Cerment tip too, but they are out of my budget range. The tiptop is a good place for a titanium frame, because weight there really hurts. Even the steel framed tops with the ceramic inserts tend to be lighter than the chrome loop tops, particularly for the smaller sized openings.
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you should get a pretty smooth coat with all of the coats. sand between coats with 600 grit until it is absolutely level and flat. Use thin coats. On the last coat make it very thin and it will dry smooth and shiny. If you have to you can sand the last coat with fine paper, 600 - 1200 grit. That will still dull it but it will take out what should be just a few small imperfections. You can
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8.5 foot 8 wt seems like a pretty unusal combination to me. Saltwater maybe a short rod for fishing in the mangroves? Maybe a largemouth bass rod. I would certainly use ceramics with the extra stripper and set it up to shoot line as well as possible. Spigot or tip over ferrules? I like the indicator marks for assembly. Woven in for me. On a 8.5 ft rod I might make the short fighting butt
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I have been real happy with burl cork purchased from custom tackle and from Andy Dear. I have not gotten any real good natural cork from anywhere lately.
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Some of my preference for single foot ceramics is the fact that they do allow shooting line on the back cast with light lines and little line out. I tried both snakes and single foots on the same blank and the line shooting on the backcast was markedly different.
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I use and like the line tamer guide on a 5 wt. Of course with those cerments that is a significant extra cost. I have not built that blank. I would suggest looking at your guide spacing and using just as few guides as you can get buy with near the top to keep the weight down. Or at least refrain from putting on extra to make it better. When I do the line tamer now I commit fully to it and sp
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For the 2 rods I built to keep for me I just used the whole ugly Fuji seat. Works great. I don't see any reason not to do what you asked though. I would not put non stabalized wood on a salt water rod.
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Yeah. You have to watch the part that protrudes. Most of the rods I work on are 3 or 4 piece so the butt section is short and stiff. I put a piece of tape around the rod where it will hit the back edge of the headstock if it whips. Never tried it on a one piece. Have done 2 piece with no problems.
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I sand my cork that way. That is, I put the blank through the 3 jaw chuck and run a live center in the end of the blank. It always worries me a little, but so far I have had no problems. I use a little PSI scroll chuck that I can feel the pressure very well, I use rubber strips on the jaws, I tape the blank, and sometimes I put a thread wrap on the end of the blank for the live center and some
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I guess I just live dangerously. I have one of the little PSI scroll chucks. I put some rubber protectors on the jaws and chuck directly on to the rod shaft in front of the grip. I use a live center in the back. I do the whole grip except for the last ring between centers. The I add the end ring, remove the tail stock, and use my left hand for a lathe steady and sand with the right. Only tak
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I have the chuck you mentioned in your question. It is what is known as a scroll chuck. You turn a disc on the chuck to tighten it rather than turn a gear with a chuck key. The chuck works fine for fishing rods. I have a large, standard 3 jaw chuck also. I got the little one so that I could chuck directly on blanks without crushing them (so far). I put rubber loops on the little chuck and t
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Get the Jet and get a 3 jaw chuck. Be better for sanding grips and you can use it for many other things.
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I have always liked All-star blanks. Was disappointed when they quit selling them. I bought a couple of the remaining ones from Andy. Good blanks, great price. If you really want a bargain that is currently a good way to go.
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I like the REC recoil single foot guides a lot for a light rod like a 3 wt. What I really like is a combo, with about 3 or 4 REC single foots at the top and some sort of ceramic from there down.
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A while back we were having a discussion about how rod companies can use the terms "nano" in their advertising. Today I ran across a publication put out in hopes of making terminology uniform for this field. Thought the first few definitions were interesting because you don't have to build it up atom by atom to call it nano. It sorta goes along with the idea that "nano" i
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The VPS specifically might be a rod that you will do better on your own with. In the early catalog description of the VPS one of the cost cutting items they mentioned was that the VPS had one fewer guides than their premium rods. I guess that could be good or bad depending on how you view the number of guides.
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Almost all the rods I have built have been on "unseen" or tested blanks. You have to start somewhere. Pick a blank that seems to meet you specifications from one of the sponsers, don't buy a real expensive one or a real cheap one, and have at it. Rodbuilding is a very forgiving enterprise. You do get do overs if you don't like the way it came out the first time. People keep sayin
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I hate to get into this because I have huge problems with wavey epoxy on the butt wrap too. Particularly with LS. But I am gaining on it. One thing that I have not seen mentioned yet is that the rod does have to be very close to level. Takes that stuff a long time to cure and a bit of finish hanging under the rod is going to run sideways as well as down if the rod is not level.
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I use both on the same rod. I use the ceramics up to the last 3 guides from the tip (or maybe 4 on a longer rod) then use single foots to the tip. the tip is the place to save weight. Many of the ceramic tops are actually lighter than many of the wire loop tops. If you can stand an ugly tip that performs well a REC recoil tip and 3 recoil single foots and the rest alconite or titanium SIC
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The answer is gonna depend on what you want to cut with it. If you want to cut straight lines or make accurate cuts in stock a couple of inches thick, I think you are going to be disapointed with the small saws. The diameter of the wheels essentially determines the thickness and hardness of the blade that you can run. The real small saws , 8,9, and 10 inch wheels, generally run a very thin, s
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I had to throw away a flex coat kit this year. It was crystalized in the bottle and both bottles were leaking. I did not try to re-dissolve it. It looked pretty far gone and the bottles were awful messy. It was stored inside at room temperature for the time I had it and it looked okay when I bought it. But when I got it out to use it the shrink warp around it and the labels were partially di
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