Wayne, I haven't used the Cason's solvent base on nylon yet, but found out the hard way that 2 coats wasn't enough to prevent bleeding and streaking on 00 silk - it took 4 coats to seal completely. As Mike noted, it's very thin and will darken the wraps about 1 shade.
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Bruce, Is the reel seat all metal, or does it have a wood or plastic barrel? Check and see if there's a small diameter pin through the butt end of the seat - drive out with a flat ended punch. The all metal seats can be heated and removed; the multipiece seats are somewhat touchier, especially the plastic ones (some of the early plastics were quite flammable). Before removing the seat, though,
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Hi Dale, Welcome! Tom covered the advantages of using smaller guides, especially towards the tip of the rod. If you're in an experimenting mood, try the rods both ways - with your proposed setup and with the smaller guides - you'll be able to feel the difference. On those blanks, I wouldn't use anything larger than a size 6 for the running guides (all but the bottom 3), and am starting to move
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Another approach, along the lines that Tom suggested, would be to use a 1 1/8 " Forstner bit (the kind that removes the wood from the drilled area) or a sharp wood bit of the same size, and drill a pocket just under 1/8 " deep in a piece of scrap wood about 1 1/2" in thickness. The center pilot of the bit will provide a mark to drill the 3/16" hole through the rest of the pi
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Thanks for the input, folks! Mike, Scott and Lance raise a very valid point, one which I will discuss with the customer. It's a spinning rod for light drop shotting (6#, 1/4 oz.). Scott, I finally came up with the same answer you did - use a blank piece, sized to fit, under the entire seat. One advantage it would have would be to increase the blank OD at the grip point, which might help the comf
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Hi folks, Got a request for a build with a Minima reel seat. Problem is that the smallest Minima seat base is 0.374 " ID, and the blank OD where the seat needs to go is about 0.321". I'm familiar with using arbors to take up extra space, but the Minima base section is designed to fit snugly on the blank, and all the standard methods I can think of will show at the edges of the seat. A
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Brian, Is the handle perhaps missing its butt cap? Horrocks-Ibbotson, among others, often used oversized plastic butt caps and fore-end caps to hold the rings on a straight Tennessee style grip instead of using flared grip ends, especially on their lower end rods. Your rod almost certainly used aluminum slip rings, either raw metal or, more probably, anodized in one of several colors to match th
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x2 on Swampland - let Lance help you with the guides - he'll even send you larger guides, if you insist!
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Matt, Can't help you much on the history of the maker, but fly rods in the 1860-1890 time frame typically had loose ring guides of nickel silver or nickel plated brass, pretty much exactly like the captive ring hook keepers still available for fly rods today. A rod of that length would have had about 7 guides - 2 each on the tip and both mids, and one on the butt, all the same size. Fly lines o
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I've done scarf repairs on cane rods, and it can result in a strong, fishable repair, but the ones I've done were relatively clean breaks, not splintered on both sides as you describe. If you scarf the two pieces together, you'll lose length due to the overlap of the scarf, so the repaired tip section is going to be short. The splintering can be repaired by careful reglueing, overwrapping after t
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Hi Folks, Need some opinions on a blank for a semi-pro bass fisherman - he wants an 8 ft. baitcasting blank to throw 1/2 oz. jigs, with enough backbone to move an unwilling bass from underwater cover (mostly drowned trees). 30-40 lb. braid line, Minima seat, cork rear grip, no foregrip. I've suggested a mag-bass style blank, MF or F action and MH power, but am seeing a relatively slim selection
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Auto parts stores which stock body and paint supplies generally stock double sided tape for reattaching moldings and emblems after repair. 3M is one manufacturer. This tape is very thin, is available in various widths, and adheres quite well on a properly prepped surface. You can generally pull it off and reattach it if you need to, but best results come from getting it right the first time.
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How about attaching a pivot block or blocks to the wall behind your bench? I use 3 lights, 2 incandescent and 1 magnifying fluorescent, all on swing/extension arms and attached to the back of my bench about 18" above the table level. I changed the clamps out for solid wood blocks drilled to accept the base tubes of the lamps so they have full side-to-side swing as well as extension. My benc
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Walt, Not necessary with a properly sized and prepped joint. Some bamboo guys still use them, but I think it's more from tradition than necessity. Never seen one on a glass or graphite rod.
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Thanks for the input, folks! That was my thinking also - it's just a more extreme example of a repair like a reel seat replacement on a one piece rod, where just about everything has to come off to do the fix. I recently had the luxury of doing a build on a new blank - couldn't believe how much easier and faster it was!
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Hi folks, There have been a couple of threads about charging Federal Excise Tax on rod builds which I've found very helpful, but I do have a question. I have done a couple where the customer gave me a fully functional rod, in one case almost brand new, which I then completely stripped, repainted and used as the blank for their rod. Since the rod I used was complete, does this type of build consi
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Hi folks, Got a commission to build a rod (finally!) and could use some suggestions from the more experienced to wade through the possibilities... Customer specs: 6'8" to 7'4"(prefer 7' to 7'2") casting, medium power, fast action, 14-17 lb. mono, 3/8 to 5/8 oz. spinnerbaits or buzzbaits, long distance casting, enough power to move a bass at long range but good sensitivity, graph
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Is the damage to your friend's casting or reeling hand? If it's to the casting/ rod holding hand, you might consider making a grip which gives him better grip and support by changing contours, increasing diameter as necessary, and/or adding loops or straps to give better hand support - there's going to be a lot of load on the rod when he hooks up! A fully custom orthopedic handle may wind up loo
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Gary, Is the blank painted and then clear coated, or just clear coated over the natural color? If it's painted I can see just scuffing it and coating with the clear, but if it's a natural color blank, I think you'd get a better finish by stripping it down and then recoating - no worries that way about incompatibility of finishes, and no uneven areas due to nicks, scratches, etc. For the painted
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Edward, Many years ago Orchard Industries, makers of Actionrod baitcasting rods, used an aluminum disc held in place by a small center screw on which they would engrave the owner's name. You could adapt that idea and use another material (brass, anodized aluminum, hard plastic, etc.). Put a small wooden plug in the butt of the blank and drill for the screw. The disc can be engraved by a trophy o
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John, The 281341 is still shown on the Netcraft website, but only up to size 16. It's a Pacific Bay guide with a Hialoy ring in a black stainless frame. Closest to a match that I see in Netcraft is their # 260334 - a Forecast BUDLG double footed guide with an aluminum oxide ring in a black stainless frame. That style is available in 20, 25, 30 and 40 sizes, as well as the smaller ones (8, 10,
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Thanks for clarifying! Pete
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Mark, Please forgive a dumb question: What do you mean by the shut-off point on a blank? Is it where there is no effective curve when the blank is fully loaded? Thanks,
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Tony, There was a thread about 6 weeks back dealing with removing reel seats. If you search with "reel seat removal" as the term and look in all posts for the last 90 days, it'll come up. Sorry, I don't know how to make the search show as a link.
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I tend to agree with Christopher- it's easier to build the grip separately and then install it on the rod. If you've not done grips before, the place where you're likely to mess up is in turning it, not in the glue-up; if you make a mistake either way on the rod, you have to live with it or cut it off and start over. You can make a cork clamp cheaply from 2 pieces of threaded rod and a couple of
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Billy, f I'm understanding the conversions correctly (divide the line weight rating by 16), a 9 wt. rod would rate for 1/2 to 5/8 oz. lures. Fairly stout, but maybe right depending on your terminal rig. Rather than 2 reel seats, how about a long (12"-16") Tennessee style handle? Used in Europe quite a lot on the long rods, and would give you good leverage for casting, as well as all
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Walt, I've found that even guides which are preground need some further work on the foot to transition smoothly with size A. I use a Dremel and a cylindrical chainsaw sharpening stone, or a small file, to bring the front and sides of the foot down to a knife edge and to reduce the angle of the transition by grinding the slope down, both on the top and on the sides. Be careful to remove any wire
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Hi Andy, Welcome to the rodbuilding world! Suggestions for the rod wrapping jig: the V-block is probably easier to make, cheaper than buying rollers and works well. Make at least 3 blocks, using scrap boards or plywood. Cut all the blocks to the same height and cut all the V's (about a 45 degree angle) at the same time, if you can, so that all the blocks match. Attach each block at right a
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Hi Scott, The guide you have is called a trumpet, or bell guide. Used primarily from about 1880 to 1930. Most of these were used on bait casting rods rather than fly rods - bait casting rods in that time frame were typically 8 1/2 to 10 ft. long (the Henshall pattern from the early 1880s was 8 ft. 3 in.). Some manufacturers, such as Horrocks-Ibbottson, made the grip with a female ferrule at
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Thanks for the replies. High end weight would be about 5/8 oz.
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